Welcome to Insly Articles: write about your town, your trade, your money

Insly has always been about the places around you: the plumber who actually shows up, the braai spot with the view, the salon that gets your hair right the first time. Reviews tell part of that story. Today we are opening the rest of it.

Articles is a place on Insly where anyone can write. Business owners, tradespeople, foodies, road-trippers, the person on your street who knows every hardware store within twenty kilometres. If you have something worth saying about South African life, it belongs here.

What can you write about?

• Business and money: what it really costs to open a coffee shop, how you priced your first job, the tax admin nobody warned you about.
• Food and travel: the padstal that is worth the detour, a weekend in a town you had never heard of.
• Home, cars, health, beauty, property, careers: the stuff you researched for weeks and wish someone had just told you.
• Opinion and community: the case for your neighbourhood, a letter to your city.

Name the businesses in your story

This is the part that makes Insly different from other writing platforms. When you write about a place, you can attach its listing to the story. Readers get a card under your article with the business's rating, city and a link straight to its page, where they can read reviews, see photos and get in touch. Your story sends real customers to real businesses.

If the business is yours, even better. Write about your trade. Explain how you work, what people should look out for, what a fair quote looks like. It is the most honest marketing there is, and it lives next to your listing.

How it works

1. Sign in and open Write a story.
2. Add a title, a cover image and pick a topic.
3. Write. Headings, quotes, lists, images and links all work. Drafts save as you go.
4. Search for the businesses you mention and attach them.
5. Publish. Your followers are told, and the story appears on the Articles hub, in its topic, and on your profile.

Readers can clap for a story (up to fifty times, if it is that good), respond in the comments, and follow you for the next one. Writing also counts towards your contributor level and the monthly city leaderboards.

A few house rules

Keep it honest and keep it yours. Say so if a business paid you or gave you something. No copy-pasting other people's work. Be as opinionated as you like about places, and decent about people.

That is it. The pen is yours. Write your first story.