By Emily Suess
Not all of your employees will be enthusiastic about writing content for your small business. However, there are so many benefits to be gained from insourcing your content marketing that it’s worth putting in a little extra effort to encourage everyone you employ to create great content, including graphics, blogs, and videos.
Create a Plan and Explain the Strategy
Some employees may be reluctant to start generating marketing content for you because they feel the task is well outside of their comfort zone. Some may think that blog writing is the only way to contribute. To minimize their fears, approach them about contributing content with a complete plan in place, emphasizing the importance of playing to their strengths and relying on their colleagues when faced with tasks outside of their skill set.
Publish Varied Content
When you opt for flexibility instead of a rigid content format, your company will benefit. Some employees will be better at writing list and how-to posts while others will be talented videographers or creators of images and infographics. Playing to each contributor’s strengths ensures that your employees will find content creation more enjoyable, and it increases your chances of appealing to a more diverse audience.
Put Content Creation in Every Job Description
Let employees know from the start that they will be expected to contribute to the business’s content marketing efforts. When content generation is a listed responsibility, it can be used as an evaluative tool during employee reviews. Even if you only ask your employees to contribute once a year, making it official prevents most employees from making excuses. It’s simply an item on their to-do list that they know they need to check off.
Give Employees Credit for Authorship
This is huge—especially for blogging. Give all of your employees individual author bios with thumbnail photos to give credit where credit is due. It might take a little bit of time to get these author bios set up, but it’s well worth the effort. Not only will employees have additional incentive to share the content they’ve created, but your content will have more appeal to readers when they see real people are sharing their expertise. There’s nothing quite as bland as a “team” or “staff” byline on your blog.
Show Employees the Data
Keep interest alive by showing your employees how their content is driving traffic and sales. Engagement and traffic statistics can be directly linked to sales metrics, and seeing these numbers can prove to your team that their content contributions are extremely valuable to your small business.
You can even stir up some friendly competition among your staff by rewarding top content creators. Maybe an extra vacation day for the post that gets the most likes, shares, or hits? Or how about a gift card or small bonus to the employee that generates the most content each quarter?
By using these methods, you can encourage all employees—regardless their job titles—to turn their expertise into shareable marketing content for your business.
