SMT Contributor Guidelines

Social Media Today is both a news source for social media professionals as well as a community of writers (in the social media/digital marketing industry) interested in sharing their business tips, tricks and ideas with the world. The Social Media Today contributor community is the life and blood of our site. As a community member, we ask you to help us create and share the best business news and insights on a regular basis.

You are encouraged to submit new content often. Our editorial team has the task of sorting through these submissions and selecting the best of the best to publish each day. Only posts that meet our content guidelines will be considered for publication.

Contributors that publish regularly and have great reviews from our readers will have the opportunity to join our influencer program.

As a community, we strive to create inspiring content for other social media professionals every day.

General Content Guidelines

  • RELEVANT CONTENT ONLY: Make sure everything you submit is timely and relevant to our audience. Your content must be related to social media and digital marketing business practices that are relevant today. We cover five core topics: social media news and updates, digital business strategies, social media marketing strategies, content marketing tips and best practices, and all trending topics in the social media and digital marketing world.
  • SUBMIT YOUR OWN CONTENT: Your article must be authored by you. Plagiarism is not tolerated. (Do not submit an article written by anyone other than yourself under your profile name.) If you are sharing someone else's infographic, please write your own intro and give the author/creator of the piece due credit.
  • EDIT YOUR WORK: Your article should be thoroughly copyedited for grammar, spelling, and usage. While the substance of our content may be global, the preferred standard for grammar/spelling is American English. We reserve the right to edit titles for clarity, style, or SEO purposes, and we may also make minimal edits to the body of your post for brevity or clarity. If you have smart ideas but share something that is not edited, most likely our team will not have the time to edit and will pass on this piece.
  • NO SALES PITCHES: We do not accept content that is promotional or commercial in nature. You're welcome to add in links that are relevant to the article, but we do not post sales content.
  • NO SPAM: No drop links or spammy links. We do accept (and encourage) high-quality and relevant links, but any links that aren’t informational in nature will be removed without notice.
  • EXPLAIN YOUR IDEAS: We don't want any vague content that doesn't really add value. Make sure to give as many examples and explanations as you can to make the article juicy and beneficial to the reader.

After a two-week period has passed from the publication date, you may republish the article elsewhere, but our link should remain the canonical URL and you should include attribution to our site.

Industry Dive reserves the right to distribute accepted content via other Industry Dive products, services and partnerships.

How to Contribute

Go to the Submit a Post page. Fill out the form.

Title: Your article title.

Teaser: A brief description of the post. (1-2 sentences.)

Body: Copy and paste your entire article (images included) here.

Review everything and make sure you've met all of our guidelines. Once you hit submit on your post, you can no longer edit and it immediately enters our moderation queue and is liable to be published, so please be sure to fill in only the final version of your post -- no drafts.

When you're ready, hit Submit. You should see a page pop up that says "Thanks for submitting a post!" -- if you get here, your content has been successfully submitted!

If you have issues at all, please email our community manager: [email protected]

Tips for Contributor Success

Here are some tips that will help increase the likelihood of your work being published:

  • Original, exclusive content will always be valued higher than republished pieces.
  • Content that offers actionable insights (ideally with real-world examples) to help other digital marketers learn and succeed.
  • Sharing your unique point of view on any trending topics. We’re always on the lookout for new points of view and fresh insights.
  • Links back to any previous SMT content is a plus. Show us you are an active reader and community member.
  • Informative, accurate and well-designed infographics are easy wins in the SMT content game. Please do not submit an infographic without an introduction or background information to support the piece.
  • Engaging, informative and relevant graphics or embedded video content is encouraged if you have the resources.
  • Includes quotes, stats, interviews with experts, or information from a new study or research (with links).

We encourage contributors to own their own written voice and use this freedom to share your own relevant, relatable, informative, unique content.

Becoming an Influencer

Social Media Today Influencers are our most active, trusted, VIP contributors on Social Media Today. Based on website metrics and contributor performance data, we offer a place in this group each year to our contributors who regularly contribute unique, high-quality content that our readers enjoy.

SMT Influencers are given rewards for producing regular, high-quality, unique content. Some of these rewards include website ad space, backlinks, guaranteed content approval (within reason), a page dedicated to their content, collaboration work and much more.

In order to be considered for this, you must be an approved contributor regularly submitting content our readers love.

Thanks for sharing your unique social media and digital business insights on Social Media Today.