Your Employees Are a Content Gold Mine: Here’s How To Use It
57% of companies say that they create content to improve their brand’s reputation.
Interestingly, one of the biggest factors that impact how consumers feel about your brand is how well you treat your employees. In fact, 30% of consumers say that their decision to become a loyal customer hinges on a brand’s treatment of staff.
One of the best ways to show potential customers that your staff members are thriving within your company atmosphere is by actively engaging staff in content production.
Not only does employee-generated content create a sense of belonging across your teams, it also boosts the frequency of your content releases and provides a differing perspective on your brand.
Read on to learn the top ways to engage your employees in the content process.
Why Involve Your Employees In Content Production?
Your content library serves as a way to market your products, boost brand awareness, and foster a positive brand image.
However, if you’re not posting content frequently, you won’t get the results you want from your target audience.
In fact, to truly make a dent – at least until an extensive content library is established – small businesses need at least three to four blogs per week. On top of this, you should be posting on Facebook five to six times per week, on Instagram around four times per week, and on Twitter four to five times per week.
Not only is this a lot of content to produce, but 43% of content marketers say they struggle to come up with good content ideas that will resonate with their target audience.
By leveraging your staff to come up with ideas and generate content, you relieve some of the burden from your marketing team.
Beyond the practicalities, though, engaging your employees in content creation poses a bunch of other benefits.
For starters, employee-generated content can help improve your brand’s reputation.
Nearly a third of consumers say that when they’re considering purchasing from a new brand, how it treats employees impacts their decision to buy.
Employee-Generated Content
Employee-generated content shows buyers that staff is engaged with your company, indicating a sense of wellbeing.
You’ll also find that your staff members can provide fresh perspectives for your company. Each staff member has their own stories about your brand that provides an authentic viewpoint.
As Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group, puts it, “Every employee has a story that can sell your brand.”
So in every single business (including yours), there’s an internal user-generated content (UGC) engine ready to be switched on.
What’s more, involving your employees can help to show them that you value their contribution.
Different employees can provide unique and valuable insights that the marketing team may not get on their own, depending on their job role.
For example, a customer service specialist is likely to direct content strategists on self-help resources better than even a great marketer can.
Not only can you use these insights to design a more effective content strategy, you can also include content produced by your employees and reward them for this contribution. This will help in multiple ways accelerate your revenues and improve your employee engagement.
This level of recognition helps to boost employee motivation and retention.
It’s not just that two-thirds of employees think their relationship with their superiors would improve if they recognized them more, but 85% also admit that they’d work harder if they got more recognition.
7 Ways To Mine Content From Your Team
Involving your team in content creation helps boost the quality and quality of your content.
Here are seven ways to engage employees in the content process.
1. Brainstorming Sessions
Your staff is a treasure trove of content ideas ready for you to harvest. In addition, they will have their own stories and viewpoints on the company and bring professional expertise to the table.
Leverage your company’s hive mind by scheduling regular meetings where you ask your staff what kind of content they feel would help to sell your brand.
You may find that your staff has witnessed certain feedback from the customer base that you didn’t know about. They may also notice trends among your audience.
You may also want to read: When It Comes To Writing Content, Keep It Simple, Stupid!
2. Send Them To Events
Don’t just use your staff for ideas — use them for content too.
By sending your staff to events, conferences, and industry-relevant locations, you can create moments that are worth sharing.
Images and video of your teams attending events shows the audience that your staff is engaged in your brand and your company is engaged within the market.
Plus, tagging content on social platforms increases the likelihood that event organizers will share your images, exposing you to a new and highly relevant audience.
3. Celebrate Their Causes
82% of consumers say it’s important that brands stand for something more important than profit.
Use your platforms to support staff members by posting content that celebrates causes close to their hearts. This will also help show that you’re about more than just profit.
One way to do this is to post content that shows what staff is doing in their spare time, such as raising money for certain charities or participating in a fun run.
You can also use your staff as a mouthpiece on certain hot topics.
You’ll likely find that many of your team members would gladly help the brand engage in social issues. In fact, half of workers say they’d be more engaged if their workplace took more of a stance on social equality issues.
Why not ask them to write opinion pieces for your blog or add to your podcast ratings by appearing as a guest.
You may also want to read: Why Culture Defines How Well You Tell Your Brand Story
4. Foster Company Culture
Two-thirds of employees say they’d be more engaged at work if employers improved company culture.
Why not increase engagement and create content-worthy moments at the same time?
Organize staff events, parties, and activities that bring your team together and provide you with a quick snap that you can post on your socials.
If you’re not clear on your organization’s culture, I highly recommend running a culture assessment to gain a better understanding of your current culture and to learn what is important in defining it going forward.
Sample questions you might ask could include:
- On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our current company culture?
- In what ways do you think our company culture is supportive of employees?
- In which areas would you like to see improvement in our company culture?
- How likely are you to recommend working for our company to others?
Remember, you can’t foster company culture if you haven’t defined it in the first place.
5. Reward Contributions
Use your content platforms as a place to reward the contributions of your staff.
Sadly, one in five employees says that feeling unappreciated for their contributions impedes their engagement at work.
Why not use content platforms as a place to give your staff a shoutout.
You may also want to read: The Benefits of Showcasing Company Culture in Digital Marketing
6. Task Them To Build Support Guides
Your frontline staff members deal with your customers every day. This means they have a front-row seat to the types of issues your target audience faces.
Currently, 65% of brands don’t have any form of searchable knowledge hub. Unfortunately, this means there’s nowhere for potential and existing customers to find out how to use your product more effectively.
Why not reach out to your staff to ask them what to include in a support hub. You could even task them with building your support guides.
7. Build An Employee Hashtag
A simple yet effective way to get your staff involved with content generation is to create an employee hashtag.
This gives consumers an authentic insight into your brand while fostering a sense of belonging with your staff.
You can monitor the hashtag and share this content on your own platforms to increase posting frequency without increasing content production.
Conclusion
If you’re creating a company culture where your staff (or small company team) enjoys working for your brand, you should leverage this engagement to help build your content strategy. Your employees are a content gold mine. So, make the most of it!
Not only can you use your team’s expertise to come up with content ideas, you can also encourage employee-generated content to show consumers that you’re a brand that cares about its staff.
Need more help building an effective content strategy. Check out more Content Marketing articles on the Curatti blog to learn more.
Hailey is a content marketing consultant for B2B SaaS companies, focusing on sales platforms and the tools that integrate with them. In her free time, you can catch her traveling the world or dancing bachata. To learn more, check out haileylucas.com or connect with her on LinkedIn here or tweet/follow her @iamhaileylucas.
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