As more brands and companies lean towards content marketing as a way of customer acquisition, one Singapore-based startup is positioning itself to be “Asia’s Content Marketplace”.
Bolt, founded by journalist Chan Yi Wen and launched in July 2015, aims to match companies with the right content creators.
Bolt has more than 350 content creators subscribed to their platform, specialising in writing and editing, photography, strategy, design and translation, spanning topics from business to lifestyle, health, automotive, news, travel, sports, tech and others. Its customer base is a mix of both prestigious organisations like CNN, Forbes, and SPH to smaller startups.
The original idea for Bolt was to be a newsroom solution for writers based on Yi Wen’s own experience as a journalist making the transition to the digital age. It pivoted towards a content marketplace because, as she explained “a lot of brands are ramping up on content marketing, becoming media companies in their own right to better engage with their customers.
“But because most businesses are not traditionally content producers, they lack the know-how on managing content projects as well as finding talents.”
Singapore startup Bolt aims to become Asia’s content marketplace.
Bolt works well as a solution for small or new companies which cannot invest in their own in-house creative team and for large companies, “rather than having one person creating all the content”, it allows them to outsource the task by tapping into a broader talent pool of quality-assured specialists (e.g. in the field of travel).
Described by Yi Wen as like “a LinkedIn for writers”, Bolt enables its members to develop a portfolio of their published work on a simple but visually-appealing grid format.
“The writer can copy and paste the URL of work they have done and it instantly grabs the headline and photo” to display on their professional portfolio. Differentiating itself from a blog, a Bolt profile only includes published and credited articles/campaigns, building each writer’s credibility.
Bolt then “sorts through their portfolio, so that keywords can be amassed”, helping to quantify and identify their fields of expertise. Bolt then acts as the intermediary, matching tasks/job postings with writers.
There is also a more ‘open’ system where writers are able to pitch ideas for businesses that are formulating a campaign. In doing so, it aims to act as a much more efficient hiring process, said Yi Wen.
Project notes and content changes can be tracked, workload can be delegated, and key objectives can be tackled, all on the same system.
To build up its community, it has organised workshops such as:
It also publishes content on a regular basis as part of walking the talk with content marketing, says Yi Wen.
Bolt monetises its services through two streams – companies pay a monthly licensing fee for access to both marketplace and content management system, which acts as the primary source of Bolt’s revenue. Content creators do not need to pay to be listed – Bolt gets a 15% commission on project fees.
Yi Wen also wants Bolt to act as a collaborative workspace platform. Project notes and content changes can be tracked, workload can be delegated, and key objectives can be tackled, all on the same system.
“I don’t want it so that afterwards you’re still using things like WhatsApp or Google Docs to collaborate, then onto something else. We’re approaching it as an end-to-end solution,” she said.
With its eye on becoming the primary resource for creative content services in APAC, Bolt is looking to expand beyond Singapore to markets such as Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and India.
