When it comes to search engine optimization and conversion rates, content marketing is an absolute necessity. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a dedicated team of writers, you might struggle with producing high-quality content consistently.
One of the best solutions to this problem is including your employees in the content marketing strategy. Many companies leverage the power of their employees to produce content on a regular basis. However, some employees might avoid blogging because they doubt their own writing skills, aren’t sure what to write about, or simply don’t have the time.
You can show your team that contributing to the company blog doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Here is a quick look at six tips that will help you encourage your team to become a part of your content marketing program.
Ask Each Employee Personally
Creating great content doesn’t always need to be a group effort. If you have specific employees who you think would make great writers, then you should try speaking with them in private about contributing to the blog.
Asking the selected employees whether they would like to contribute will resonate better than just imposing the task on everyone. By discussing it personally, you will be able to help them come up with specific topics they are interested in and passionate about.
Their blog material can come from old projects they have completed or a bit of industry news they find interesting. Asking a single employee directly also lowers the chance that they will say “no” and hope another team member picks up the slack.
Give Them a List of Topics
Coming up with a pertinent and interesting topic is often the most difficult part of this process. Many employees may find it difficult coming up with an appropriate subject to cover for a company blog. If this seems like something that your employees are struggling with, then you might want to create a list of topics that you think would make great additions to your blog.
As you and your employees begin scouring the Internet for new topics, you will develop a much better idea of what is being discussed in your industry. When a team member is finally ready to tackle a blog, they can simply sign up for that topic and cross it off the list.
Let Them Be Creative
While you offer your employees the chance the choose from a list of topics, don’t forget to let them contribute their own ideas. Writing content on subjects they are passionate about can make all the difference in the quality of your blog. This is why many business owners give their employees an incredible amount of freedom regarding what is written.
Your employees don’t even need to write about subjects that pertain to their current job title or project. Letting them explore different topics and get used to the idea of writing for a blog could spark creativity down the road. As long as the content in some way pertains to your business or industry, it will most likely make a worthwhile addition to the blog.
Give Them Some Guidance
Unfortunately, most employees have never had to write extensive content in a professional setting. For those who are still having trouble getting their ideas onto paper, you might want to offer some extra guidance to get them going. One great way to do this is to provide them with a pre-made template for writing a blog. Online writing tools can also help improve the quality of their output.
You can also ask them for a simple outline before they delve into the heavier writing. This will give you a chance to look over their work and make changes before they invest too much time into the project. Breaking these tasks into manageable chunks will often reduce the amount of stress your writers feel on a daily basis.
Give Them Incentives
Positive reinforcement is an important part of managing a team, and a modest incentive might be all that is needed to motivate them to go above and beyond, to truly become social employees. While monetary rewards are one popular way to do this, these incentives do not need to be all about money.
Many team members respond just as well to small gifts, getting off work a few hours early, or even public acknowledgment from their superiors. Managers who plan on asking their employees to write a certain number of posts per month should consider offering additional incentives to those who write extra content or attract a large number of visitors to a particularly well-written article.
The ability to work remotely for the best bloggers can also be a great incentive. This popular employment model will remove the daily commute, give them a better work-life balance and support their creativity and productivity.
Show Them the Results
Every employee working on your digital marketing campaign should be regularly reminded of the results their hard work is producing. Unlike many other types of projects, your blogging team might not notice any tangible changes after they have invested countless hours into creating great content. Whether your traffic has gone up or your conversion rates are improving, it is important they know what is happening behind the scenes.
At the very least, you might want to consider sharing some of the numbers you are using to track the success of your marketing campaign. This can come in the form of a quarterly email to the entire team or simply dropping by their office to give them an update on the blog every few weeks. Be sure to keep contributors informed about traffic to their older blog posts as well as their more recent work, as a well-crafted blog post can continue to draw readers for two years or longer.
Final Word
Creating meaningful content for your company doesn’t need to become a dreaded chore that is thrust on the shoulders of unhappy employees. By giving them clear topics, a little encouragement, and a close look at the results, you might be surprised to find out just how much time they are willing to devote to content production. Within just a few short months, your blog could become an even more valuable central pillar of your digital marketing campaign.
Photo credit: Pixabay
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