4 Strategies to Get Content Out of Your Team
Writing and creating content is no easy task. It’s challenging to come up with fresh ideas or stories that haven’t been told before. Asking your team for content? Well, that’s a different story. Writing isn’t for everyone…especially when the audience is anyone with an internet connection. Here at Luminary Digital, we’re familiar with this struggle so we complied four strategies that help not only our team, but our clients too.
Check out our list of strategies to get content from your team without wanting to pull your hair out.
Keep it Simple and Make it Convenient
Thanks to technology and the internet, there are so many free and convenient tools to utilize gathering content from your team.
- Using a free voice recorder to record conversations, meetings or phone calls that you can refer back to.
- Create Google forms with simple questions that they can fill out quickly during their work day.
- Download the dictation app – a place to record any thoughts, ideas or information they think of throughout the day.
The key here is to know your audience. If you know someone doesn’t enjoy writing but has great ideas, record a conversation or meeting with them. If your team is busy, create a Google form that they can quickly fill out during the day.
Keep Content in the Same Place
Forget emailing. It’s easy for things to get lost in translation, convoluted in email chains or accidentally deleted. Documents can be lost among so many editions and they’re difficult to find. It’s much easier to compile them in one place.
- Here at Luminary Digital, we compile our content, ideas and inspiration in Basecamp. This allows our entire team access and the ability to add and edit content at any time.
- A free option is Google Drive. A place to store photos, stories, designs, drawings, documents, recordings, and videos. The first 15 GB of storage are free with a Google Account.
- If Basecamp or Google Drive isn’t for you, try GatherContent. Although it’s not free (they do offer a free trial), it’s a great platform for organizing large projects like website content. It’s useful from conception to completion to ongoing maintenance.
Make it Fun
- Hold brainstorming sessions and bring in lunch.
- Coggle is an online mind mapping tool with both paid and free versions. It’s a visual tool, where users can create diagrams, organizational charts, mind maps with different themes, and workflow sketches can be shared with your team. The commenting and chat features makes collaboration easy, and its coherent integration with Google Drive is very convenient.
- Another option, turn it into a friendly competition. The first person to submit their content gets an afternoon off or a reward that works for your business.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
- Check in about their progress often. Is there anything you can do to help them be successful? Use open-ended questions. Instead of saying “Is there anything I can do to help?” Say, “What can I help you with?”
Summary
When the going gets tough, utilizing content from your team may help. Each team member offers different ideas and perspectives from their vast personal knowledge. Remember, no one knows your brand more than your team – they are your brand. Whether you’re building a website or developing a comprehensive social media plan, consistent and quality content is essential to your success in the digital marketing realm.
Need help creating a content plan that will work for your team? Get in touch, that’s our jam!
