5-minute read
Blogging may be great for your business, but it takes a lot of time and nerve to undertake it on your own. So why not enlist your team in helping you kickstart your business blogging and content creation efforts. Including others will give them a chance to feel part of your firm’s online marketing efforts and invested in their success. You will also give your readers a behind-the-scenes look into the people who make your company successful. Needless to say, it will also give you more time for your other responsibilities.
Now, team involvement sounds like a great idea, but you might face a few challenges. Some people tend to think they have nothing to contribute, while others might have difficulties with grammar and spelling. You will also likely hear that they don’t have enough time to write a blog post and finish their other work. But, there is always a solution. Here is a list of tips that will help you inspire your team to do some quality blogging.
How to motivate your team to help with business blogging
Give them engaging topics
Those who are new to blogging tend to procrastinate because they don’t know where to start. Help your team members by providing engaging topics that interest them and have relevance to their expertise. You can achieve more engagement by letting them participate in the topic selection.
Brainstorming sessions can also strengthen the team spirit and boost morale, whilst finding topics that will excite both writers and the audience. Pass around the list of topics and let your employees sign up for the ones that appeal to them.
Encourage creativity
Avoid assigning topics that writers might find boring and discouraging – they will not write well if they dislike the task. Passion fuels creativity, so encourage your team to write about the things that stir their heart. Let them go beyond the strict requirements, so that they can include their own ideas and encourage them to stick to niche topics.
Also make sure that everyone understands that they need not limit themselves to topics that directly pertain to their job. This will result in the right measure of creativity and relevancy as you regularly update your blog with fresh content.
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Talk to colleagues one-on-one
Your team members might feel awkward talking about their passions in front of other people (or writing about them). To help them feel more comfortable, meet each prospect writer individually. Use these meetings to help them understand how important blogging is for your business and that they will be making a direct contribution to the success of the company. This way you can also discover what motivates each writer and use that to reward him or her.
Coach them
Don’t expect everyone to naturally perform well after they have accepted a blogging assignment. Instead, follow up with your writers to provide guidance as well as accountability. Create outlines for bloggers who have difficulty starting, so they have a framework to use while writing. Distribute the best blogs as examples of a job well done. You can also provide a handy list of content creation tools to help them when writing.
Make sure each team member feels comfortable asking for help or clarification. Your active support will encourage everyone to persevere in their blogging roles. Expect to spend a lot of time coaching your team in the beginning. Rest assured that with more experience, your bloggers will need less attention.
Encourage professional development
As a result of coaching, your colleagues will have developed a new set of skills which they can add to their resumes and LinkedIn profiles. By helping them grow as professionals and letting them build their own personal brand, they will be much more fulfilled in their professional lives. It's possible that some of your team members will discover a hidden passion for writing and might want to help out with other areas of marketing (like social media), then naturally advance into a more senior or managerial position in the company.
Provide incentives
Express your appreciation by rewarding your employees for their work. For example, companies with few resources can offer recognition or flexible work hours. Bigger companies can afford to award their bloggers with gifts or cash. You can add a competitive edge by giving a special bonus to the employee who writes the most thorough blog post or one that brings most traffic or revenue. You can also offer rewards to the most active bloggers, as long as you have quality standards in place.
Some incentives, such as the ability to work remotely for a week, for example, might provide a greater incentive than money. Telecommuting is excellent for work-life balance and productivity, and your employees might love the change. Make sure to carefully plan your rewards program though, employees will only be motivated by what they care about. As you talk with your team, get a feel for what they like and the types of things that might motivate them. The least you can do is to always praise their good effort.
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Show results
Provide continuous motivation for your staff by letting them know about the results of their efforts. Show your team how their content attracted new website visitors, increased click-through rates, generated leads and profit, and so on. Your bloggers will feel pride in their work realizing that they have tried something new and succeeded. The knowledge that they are becoming a part of something bigger will encourage your writers to continue blogging for your business.
Conclusion
It's possible to use teamwork to meet the content needs of your website. In addition to giving your employees an opportunity for personal and professional growth, you can also boost morale. Your new writers will need to be encouraged, coached and have a clear incentive in order to help you with business blogging.
With more experience, your bloggers will deliver a steady stream of content for your website. And since these blog articles will have different perspectives, your content should be more interesting and engaging to your target audience as well.
