Are you a marketer working with a tech company and are constantly looking for new topics you can write about? Why not plug into your colleagues’ knowledge in order to develop fresh, in-depth, authentic content?
A company’s team can be the first and most valuable source of relevant content. Nobody knows better than your own colleagues the specifics of your work, so why not give them the mic and involve them in creating content.
Such a campaign can give your clients or potential clients a better understanding of your team’s skills, put a face to those skills, and show your colleagues’ your company takes pride in having them in the team.
But many tech teams face blockages when it comes to writing blog articles. This is why we’ve created a short guide – A Tech Team’s Content Writing Guide, that you can share with them – or even organize a short workshop based on it – in order to help them overcome any obstacles they might see.
For someone who is not constantly writing content, it can be difficult to start. This guide answers them some important questions:
- What should I write about?
- What formats are out there?
- Which are the best practices when writing?
- What should I pay attention to?
Is this guide for you?
Yes, if you are a marketer working within a tech company and looking to:
- Build trust and attract new clients by showcasing your team’s knowledge
- Create more content with your team
- Give your content a fresh vibe
- Promote your colleagues and take pride in working with them
- Stand out through a new creative and smart approach
And the best thing is that the guide explains all of these by using terms that are easy to understand by anyone who hasn’t written content before!
Before sending them this guide and having them write content for your blog, we think there are some steps you should follow beforehand, as a marketer and promoter of this content creation campaign.
Research
Researching what other similar companies are writing is the first step you need to take if you want to differentiate your brand and answer your potential customers’ most poignant questions.
You can use tools such as BuzzSumo, SemRush’s Topic Generator of HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator to discover the most popular topics and generate new ones for your company’s blog.
When creating your content strategy, try to emphasize your colleague’s knowledge in their specific areas. They are your brand’s first ambassadors and many times, they are the ones working for your company’s clients, so having their voice heard can increase trust and create a feeling of openness and honesty.
After deciding on the most frequent topics and even generating some new ones, you can share them with your team, in order to make it easier for them to start writing.
Have a strategy in line
Before going to your team with this proposal and guidelines, set your own strategy and decide:
- Why are you doing this?
- What are your tangible goals?
- Who are you going to involve?
- What’s the timeline of this campaign?
- What resources will it take (time, money, human resources)?
- How are you going to promote their content?
- What are the risks of such a campaign?
Motivate people
We, as people, are known to generally make emotional decisions and rationalize them. So think about the fears your team might have and what would make them overcome them and get excited.
If you choose to send them this guide or to hold a short workshop going through its main points, make sure to think about the obstacles they might think of (I haven’t done this before, What if what I write isn’t good enough, What if my ideas don’t make enough sense in writing, What will people think etc.) and try to cover them with supportive messages.
Find alternatives
Not everyone feels comfortable writing content on their own from the start. Fortunately, there are various other options that can still put them in the spotlight without them having to navigate the content creation process alone.
If there are some really talented people whose insights would be of great value, but who are not ready to write about them following just these guidelines (insert link descarcare ghid), you can opt for:
- Interviews – think of some questions that would emphasize their strong points and knowledge and have them answer them in writing or you can even record these interviews for a more open approach
- Social media posts – while some of your colleagues might feel uncomfortable writing for your blog, they might feel more relaxed if asked to take over a social channel. This is also a great approach that empowers them and gives you social presence a fresh vibe
- Video content – record them answering questions, make “behind the scenes” videos, have them introduce themselves and talk about their specialization and promote those videos. You can also write short articles starting from those videos.
Give feedback
Make sure you are prepared to give actionable feedback that addresses their writing and not them as individuals.
When analyzing their content, make sure to emphasize as well what they’ve done right and what could be improved, offer clear suggestions that can be put into practice, be open and last but not least, kind. You are talking to people who aren’t doing this for a living so appreciating their efforts is essential if you want this campaign to be successful.
Make sure they understand you are there for them, ready to step in and help them with advice and suggestions if they need them. Here’s a list of podcasts that focus on communicating better and giving feedback.
Measure results
As with any strategy, you must have clear objectives that will define the way you measure results.
Decide on the data based on which you’ll consider this campaign successful and communicate this to your colleagues. This will eliminate subjective evaluation and give them and you, as well, a better understanding whether writing content can be useful for them and for the company.
Measuring results strategies include:
- How many visits your blog registered
- How many people your posts about those article reached
- How many new pieces of content did you manage to produce and how does this help your company’s content strategy
- What’s your clients’ feedback on these pieces of content (you can ask some of them directly!)
- How people felt doing this
Once you’ve gone through these steps yourself, as a marketer, you can pitch this idea to your colleagues. We’ve created some guidelines for them as well, to make your work easier!
