Engaging Your Co-workers in Content Marketing It is very important that you recruit your co-workers to become a part of your content marketing efforts, even if only on a small level. Serving as a subject matter expert or a guest blogger, or simply helping to share your content socially can make a big difference. Below are four tips to help you get your co-workers excited to help out: 1. Sell them on the value of content marketing Content marketing is a proven method for generating qualified leads and shepherding those leads down the path to purchase. It is one of the most effective ways of driving sales and therefore essential to your company’s success. This message needs to be communicated from the top down and regularly reinforced. If possible, ask your CEO to include content creation in the executive team’s annual goals, or to lead by example by blogging on a regular basis, offering ideas for content, or sharing content socially. 2. Help them build their personal brand in the process One of the great things about content marketing is that it not only helps you build your company’s brand, but it can also give individuals within your company a way to build their personal brands. By creating blog posts or being featured as subject matter experts in videos and podcasts, for example, individuals can establish themselves (and their companies) as thought leaders. It’s a win-win. 3. Make it easy for them If you are not a member of the content marketing team, creating and distributing content probably isn’t part of your job. For that reason, it is important to know how to leverage your colleagues’ time efficiently. For example, many CEOs don’t have time to write a blog post every week, but can commit to a half-hour interview once a month with a writer who will ghostwrite a post (or, better yet, a series of posts) on their behalf. You still get the benefit of publishing your CEO’s thought leadership, but you do it in a way that works within his or her constraints. 4. Motivate them any way you can Many people have a competitive streak that you can use to motivate them. Try running regular contests where employees compete to see who can drive the most traffic with their blog posts or who can get the most engagement with a piece of content across their social networks. Share the results and declare the winners on a regular basis. Consider offering a small prize for the winner or just giving them bragging rights. It’s a fun and yet surprisingly effective tactic for getting people engaged. It Takes a Content Factory! | 74