We are absolutely thrilled to have you. Here are a few tips and tools that will help you write awesome content. We will be here to help along the way, but we want you to start strong and continue to get better. The more you write, the better you get. It’s as simple as that. Please read this through in its entirety to avoid commonly asked questions.

Content Submission Guidelines

All content submitted to The Influencer Age must meet our guidelines and is subject to editing by our team. Before you submit an article, you must verify that it meets these guidelines.

As an Influencer Age contributor, you have the unique opportunity to get exposure by sharing your insights and advice with readers online. We believe that having a great personal and company brand is critical to your success — which is why our in-house editing team works with you to ensure every article or Expert Panel you submit positions you as an expert.

Before our editors can get to work, your content must meet the Influencer Age Content Submission Guidelines as well as the Influencer Age Contributor Terms and Blogging Guidelines outlined below. If you have any questions, email us at [email protected].

Before You Start Writing:

Please make sure that your profile is updated with the following.

Professional headshot photo (.jpg or .png) and make sure it is a picture of your face. Logos and other photos will not be accepted. Make sure the headshot is square 200x200px
Professional byline that complies with The Influencer Age’s formatting and
Best email address to associate with Influencer Age’s back-end content management system.
Links to at least 2 personal social media accounts including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn. This helps us ensure you are a real person and maintain integrity in the publication.

Example Byline:

“Christopher Ezell is a Columnist at The Influencer Age. Based in Miami, Florida, he specializes in influencer marketing and eCommerce. He has been featured in Thrive Global and BuzzFeed.”

Include a list of your accomplishments and some information about yourself.

PLEASE NOTE: Before you submit your first article, check that your “Biographical Info” in your member dashboard is up to date and contains a headshot and at least two social media links. Articles by people who submit without an updated profile will be rejected.

General Overview

In a nutshell, here’s what we are looking for:

Write about your industry and/or area of expertise. Influencer Age contributors should contribute articles based on thought leadership. That means your advice must be related to your area of expertise and based on firsthand experience in the industry and your role.
Don’t sell or self-promote. Readers are seeking your best tactical advice and industry expertise, not a sales pitch. So don’t write about how your product, company, service or client is the best solution. (We won’t publish it.) Instead, inform and educate your audience. Useful content increases your visibility and leads to new opportunities.
Include your own unique insights and expertise. Avoid generic advice that readers have heard before. Look for specific, tactical, fresh angles on your favorite subject matter. For example, think “5 Secret Hacks Grow On Instagram” instead of “5 Top Interview Questions.”
Avoid jargon, long quoted passages or academic-style writing. Readers prefer straightforward, accessible content that is easy to share and understand.
Include a takeaway so your audience remembers your advice. The best way to stay top-of-mind is to offer value. Don’t leave readers hanging.

Requirements

In addition to the guidelines above, every article must meet a few general requirements:

Your content must be original and previously unpublished. An article is considered published even if it only appeared on your blog, LinkedIn, etc.
Articles must be between 500-1200 words. We find 700-900 words is the sweet spot for articles to do the best.
Include an introduction, at least 3 main points, and a conclusion.
Please use the H3 tag for all subheadings and break your article up into sections.
Only one category per article and no more than 2-3 tags per article. Also please use tags that bring value to the reader and don’t use tags for SEO or spam.
Make sure that you link to at least one other internal article on The Influencer Age related to your topic. One quick way to find articles is to use the search feature in the top right corner.
All sources must be attributed (with hyperlinks) and trustworthy (e.g., Wikipedia is not an ideal source). Try to link to articles written in the last 2 years.
Only links to trusted, authoritative websites are permitted. Forbes, CNN, and Thrive Global, are all examples of trusted sources. Social Media websites link Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are also acceptable.
No keyword links, affiliate links, lead-gen links, company links, client links, etc. are allowed. See more in the “Link” section below.
If you excerpt material first published on a trusted source verbatim, use double quotes and hyperlink to the original source. (Interviews/quotes from third parties are not permitted. Read more in the “Attribution” and “Link” section below.)
Factcheck everything before you submit it to us.
No press releases, please. We are looking for advice/expert opinion. (But we can share your news on our blog.)
No self-promotion or conflicts of interest. (More on this below.)
No co-authors.
You must own the rights to all images and photos. You can click on the “Instant Images” tab to get access to high-quality images that are free to use.
No book excerpts, though you are welcome to write about a concept from your books.
No offensive, partisan or discriminatory content. We do not run content on religion or politics, and articles with inflammatory or obscene language will be removed.
No puff pieces about vendors, products, or people. When you do make a recommendation, be clear about why and offer several reputable alternatives. (If you have a conflict of interest, avoid any brand mention.)
Avoid statements that guarantee success or results (e.g., “these 3 marketing strategies guarantee you’ll make millions”).
We do not publish articles criticizing companies or people. Focus on giving positive, tactical insight.

Check ALL articles in MS Word, Grammarly, or Google Docs BEFORE submitting

We highly recommend that you use Grammarly for all your articles. It will not only catch many advanced mistakes but is an effective and easy way to catch some simple spelling and grammar errors that we all do. Writing straight into the WordPress editor won’t catch many of these (unless you use Grammarly), which is why we recommend checking your articles here in Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Grammarly first. Then copy and paste it into the editor afterward.

Download Grammarly App Here: https://www.grammarly.com/

Download Grammarly for Chrome here.

How to Post on Influencer Age

Click this link: https://influencerage.com/wp-admin
Use your username and password.
Click Posts -> Add New.
Put in a strong headline. For correct title capitalization, please go to www.titlecapitalization.com and select “AP style.”
Write your Article (refer to the style guidelines below.)
Set/upload a featured image (The featured Image box is on the right-hand sidebar) — If you can’t find one, leave it blank and we will select it for you.
Ignore Tags and Categories, we will select them for you.
Click the blue Submit for Review button on the right sidebar when ready to submit for review.
Once you submit it, we will review your article asap. It will go from Pending Review -> Ready to Schedule after we have done a basic review/edit (you will not get an email during this step). After we have scheduled your article, you will get an email with the scheduled date and time of when it will be published. The article’s status will then change to Scheduled.
Finally, you will get another email when your article goes live, asking you to help share it on all your social networks. Note: We prioritize content from those we actually share and promote their own content.

Headline Help

The headline of an article is super important. It could mean the difference between someone reading, and not reading your article. Check out CoSchedule to help.

Tool: CoSchedule

http://coschedule.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/write-emotional-headlines-power-words-copy.pdf

http://www.slideshare.net/lindsayblakely52/13-trends-of-outperforming-inccom-headlines

All Headlines Should Be in Title Case

http://titlecapitalization.com/

*NOTE: Occasionally we may change your headlines if we have a suggestion we find better suited to your article.

Subtitles (sub-headline) should not be in the title case. These should be 1 or 2 short sentences. You will see a subtitle box under the headline box at the top.

Stick to 2-3 sentences per paragraph

For easy online reading, and especially now with smartphones, it’s important to keep your paragraphs short and flowing onto the next one. Here are a few great links to check out that will help you with writing your content:

https://www.writeraccess.com/blog/write-tight-6-tips-for-finding-the-perfect-sentence-length/

https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-ideal-length-of-everything-online-according-to-science

https://blog.bufferapp.com/perfect-blog-Article-research-data

Include 2-3 relevant links in all articles

It’s always good for a writer to have a few relevant and valid sources from where you get your facts and information. It shows readers that you’re an authority on the topic. It also helps for SEO reasons and provides forward and backlinks to different content online.

It’s bad to have too many links within an article, but it’s also bad to have too few, so we aim to have contributors choose approximately 2-3 sources for each article.

Note: The only links in the first 3 paragraphs should be to other Influencer Age articles, otherwise we’ll lose too many readers to other sites.

Tip: Once you’ve written a couple of articles, try to link back to your previous Influencer Age articles. This will create and make you look like a greater authority on the subject matter while also benefiting the website’s SEO. You can link to other Influencer Age authors’ articles as well; it will also help them out.

Create a voice and style for your writing

The best part about writing is that you can give your opinion and your voice on the matter. We want all contributors to establish their voices and feel comfortable in their writing.

Be creative and professional. Create a style of writing that our readers can start to love. Bold certain words, include quotes you love, and insert videos, pictures, infographics, etc.

AVOID These Kinds of Articles:

- General Articles about entrepreneurship
- Any sort of list featuring multiple people in the article.
- General mindset articles without takeaways or actionable points
- Super technical articles
- Articles that use a lot of jargon
- No Kickstarter or Indiegogo Campaigns
- Avoid self-promotional language and Articles promoting yourself with no reader value

Features on individuals or businesses that could be read as promotional. If you want to write an article about a person or business, send an email to [email protected] and ask for approval. Any “features” without approval will most likely be denied.

Featured Images

The featured image must be less than 1000 pixels wide. Try to avoid using images that would have obvious copyright violations. Here’s a link of where to get free images

https://blog.bufferapp.com/free-image-sources-list

You can also use featured images under the creative commons license, anything you own personally or have some sort of permission to use.

If you can’t find an image that looks nice, no worries! We will find one for you through a paid image database that we use.

Writing Articles

After you log in here: https://influencerage.com/wp-admin/ with the Username and Password given, you can click on Articles -> Add New on the top left.

You can write, edit, and save your draft right there in the editor, and when you are ready to publish your Article, press the big button on the right side that says Schedule.

Make sure to set a Featured Image (bottom right). To do so, look for this box: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bg6datdwgpav727/Screenshot%202016-06-07%2016.01.09.png?dl=0

Don’t worry about tags, categories, or the Article options boxes; an editor will do that for you.

Additional Guidelines

You can find more detailed requirements (aka “fine print”) organized by topic, below:

Byline/Bio Information

It is the members’ responsibility to make sure that their Name, Company Name, Twitter, Website, and byline are all correct in their member profiles at all times. We cannot change bios and links after an article has been published. Log into your dashboard at any time to edit these fields by clicking “Edit Profile.”

Please note that we require your bio to be brief — 1 sentence long. Only 1 link is guaranteed to appear in your byline.

Editorial Discretion

Our editors and the Influencer Age editorial staff — reserve the right to edit all content submitted for publication, including:

Line edits for grammar, spelling, and syntax, as well as formatting;
Updates to headlines, subheadings, and dek;
Revisions for length, appropriateness, clarity, and style. We will advise you and ask for your final review if we make substantive edits.

We also reserve the right to remove any links that lead to material considered offensive, harmful, or that are an attempt to solicit commercial sales from readers (e.g. affiliate links, links for lead-generation purposes, links to company or client blogs). Read more about this in our “Link Policy” below.

Our editors reserve the right to not publish content until it meets all guidelines.

While we make every effort to ensure that we catch all grammar, style, and link issues, mistakes do happen. Contact your member concierge with questions or corrections.

Publication Guarantees

It is always up to the discretion of Influencer Age’s editors whether to accept a finished piece for publication. For various reasons, an article may require additional feedback or changes before it can be published. We will work with you to make that happen.

There is no guarantee that your answers to individual Expert Panels will appear online, although we make every effort to include some from every member.

Bylines and Authorship

Our publishing benefits are only for accepted members of our community and each article can only have a single byline. For that reason, our editors cannot accept content written or co-written by other members of your staff, other members, or individuals outside the community.

Conflicts of Interest

You are required to disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest arising from the content you contribute through our platform. This includes any financial interest in a product, firm, investment, or commercial venture covered in your post. Further, you may not own stock or have a financial interest in a company, service, or investment that you cover. If you are uncertain whether this applies to a topic you are considering writing about, discuss it with an editor first by emailing your member concierge.

If your content does mention a business interest of yours — e.g. a former company or commercial venture, a business you are a partner or investor in, a product/service, or a client/customer — you MUST clearly explain your affiliation with said product/service/company/individual to our editors and disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest to readers in the text itself.

Content that is commissioned by a brand or vendor, or created or modified on the behalf of such a business interest (sometimes described as “sponsored content”), is a violation of our content submission guidelines and will not be accepted for publication.

Finally, you may not use our publishing opportunities to solicit or accept free or discounted goods or services under any circumstances.

We reserve the right to unpublish or delete any content that appears to be promotional or advertorial in nature.

Link Policy

As an Influencer Age contributor, you will receive a byline with a link to your company when you contribute articles. Do not include links to your company, product, services, or clients within the body of the post. If you do, they will be removed.

Any links in the body of your post must serve to either edify the reader or support a statement of fact. If you do link to third-party sources, they must be authoritative, trusted sources such as major trade publications, research reports, reputable news media, etc. Wikipedia is not a reputable source. We do not permit links to company websites or blog posts on company websites (yours or others’).

Links for any other purposes, including SEO and keyword links (link schemes), affiliate links, lead-gen links, links to your own company or clients, etc., are not permitted and will be removed by editors.

Members found to be selling links or mentions, or exchanging them for discounted goods or services, will be expelled from the community indefinitely and may also be subject to legal action.

Accuracy, Copyrights & Fact Checking

It is your responsibility as a member to do your research, check the accuracy of your facts, and ensure that you have permission to post or quote any copyrighted or confidential information. Our editors will verify accuracy where possible and easy to do so, but it is ultimately your responsibility to ensure the material you are presenting is credible and correctly attributed.

Confidentiality

All members are expected to respect the privacy and confidentiality (as well as the copyright and intellectual property) of the companies, people, or fellow members they may write about or reference without exception.

For more information about copyright and fair use, refer to the Stanford University documentation.

Exclusivity

All content you submit must be previously unpublished. After it is published on The Influencer Age, you retain the copyright, but The Influencer Age has exclusive publishing rights for 30 days plus worldwide distribution rights. This means that you can republish it on your blog or a personal site (like Medium, or LinkedIn) with a link back after 30 days, but Influencer Age can use the content on their sites and properties indefinitely both in print and online.

Plagiarism

Our editors use a plagiarism checker for every submission to ensure content is 100% original. Plagiarism is never tolerated, in any form. Do not submit plagiarized work under any circumstances, or you will be subject to automatic dismissal. If you are uncertain about what constitutes plagiarism, explore the resources here.

Attribution, Credit & Sources

You may excerpt (quote), paraphrase, or reference another reputable published work to support your points and/or edify the reader provided you clearly cite the original source of that information. (For more detail on what constitutes a reputable source, refer to the Link Policy section above.) Use outside sources sparingly to ensure fair use. Failure to do this may be considered plagiarism.

We do not permit members to solicit quotes or interviews from third parties. As a member, you are neither a contributor nor a reporter, but an expert invited to share your knowledge. Readers are seeking your firsthand advice and insights. For that reason, members should not approach third-party sources for quotes, mentions or insights within their articles. This includes even very brief quotes, article-length interviews, or “features” of other experts/professionals. Here are two examples:

DO: Obi Felton, a director at Alphabet Inc.’s X, told Bloomberg that problems like climate change represent “trillions and trillions of dollars in market opportunity.”
DON’T: I spoke to an employee of X by email, who told me, “This is an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.”

For more detail on properly attributing sources, read below:

Provide links to corroborate any study, statistic, excerpt or research that is not common knowledge. (If you do not have a citation, delete the statement, or make it clear it is your opinion and not fact.) Links should point to the actual information you are citing (e.g., do not link to a news article referring to a study, but to the study itself), and all data should be recent (within the last 2 years) and from a reputable source. Just link the relevant words (e.g. “a January study from Gallup,”), not the full sentence. (Find more detail on reputable sources in the “Links” section above.)
When you quote exact material that was published elsewhere, whether in written, audio, or video form, link to the source and put the material inside double quotes. (Use these very sparingly, if at all.)
Indirect quotes are when you paraphrase someone’s written or spoken speech. These do not require quotation marks, but they still require a citation. You can read more about the difference here.

Contributor Guidelines