When establishing an online presence for your business, a blog can help build trust and credibility. Offer valuable content and keep things interesting and you will attract readers – but if you are like most people, you will probably find yourself running out of ideas. This is where you should tap into a resource readily available to you: your colleagues.
Of course, you may need to be prepared to hear ‘It’s not my job’, so here are a few tips for getting great content ideas from colleagues:
Offer Incentives
Start by offering incentives to encourage colleagues to contribute to your content marketing strategy. Taking them out for an individual coffee or team dinner may encourage them to share ideas for what to write about (and what avoid writing about). They may be comfortable in just suggesting the topics, but some may offer to write the blog – or at least bullet points to be the framework of the blog post.
If they are given some insight into how online marketing works, and how it could improve your business (and consequently their job security) they may have more incentive to come up with original ideas for different blog posts.
It is important though to make sure you are not eating into their work hours if they are already overloaded with tasks – that won’t do anyone any good!
Make Participation Part of Their Job Description
Well, this depends on your type of business and the individual roles of your staff, but you might consider making participation a part of their job role – perhaps at different levels for different staff members. Some might just come up with ideas, while others may be able to add bullet points, and others still can write a full post.
When it’s compulsory, however, they may not put in the same effort as they would if they volunteered.
Recognize Their Contribution
This is perhaps the most effective way to coax content ideas from your colleagues. If you have posted a blog which was shared on Facebook or has received hundreds of views, announce it on the floor or send out an email recognizing the team member’s effort. This can really motivate others to come forward with their ideas – and who knows, you may find a few volunteers who end up taking the responsibility for weekly posting.
Provide Topics/Subjects/Themes
The best way to bring out the writer in your colleagues is to give them topics and themes to work around. If your co-workers know the topic you are seeking content on, they will be more precise and might even think outside the box to come up with ideas. If you have a content calendar (and you should!) they will be able to look ahead and work on ideas for seasons, holidays, special events and so on.
So, if you could use some help in generating content ideas, these tips might just help you out. After all, remember that they are experienced in your niche and their knowledge can be of great benefit to your readers.
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