When it comes to spreading your brand, you don’t have to be the only one getting your company’s name out there. Whether you have one employee or a hundred, you should be able to light a fire under their butts to get them on board with branding your company.
We asked eight entrepreneurs how they encouraging employees to contribute to their company’s branding efforts on their own. Take a look at their answers below so you can kick your branding efforts into the next gear:
Gamify the Process
After many failed attempts to encourage spontaneous contributions, we decided to gamify and offer incentives. Internally, we created a system of perks and rewards based on the quality of retweets, the amount of shares on a blog post, etc. At the end of a predetermined period, the employee with the most points was awarded a prize such as a mini iPad or some other cool gadget.
– Marcela De Vivo of Gryffin
Give Employees Credit
I see this happen a lot: junior members never get credit for content they write. Make sure you help all team members build a body of work; it builds credibility for the entire team!
– Zack Johnson of Syndio
Offer Them Incentives That Benefit Their Work
We encourage employees to participate in our social media by offering up incentives that will benefit their accounts. For example, we do a ‘Feature Friday’ on our social media channels that promotes one of our venues. Our sales representatives love this because it makes their accounts/venues happy.
– Jayna Cooke of EVENTup
Collaborate With Employees
Help employees feel connected with content by sharing it around in office-wide emails, letting them pitch different story ideas and writing about what matters to them. If employees feel connected with the brand messaging, they are much more likely to share on their own social media or write for the company blog.
– Aron Susman of The Square Foot
Help Them Explore Their Passions
At One Month, people often come up with great ideas for blog posts without even realizing it. ‘I just did this cool thing,’ is a great indicator that something could become a blog post. Try to identify those moments and respond with, ‘That should be a blog post!’ Connect them with the right person internally to make it happen and develop the idea. Eventually it will become part of your culture.
– Mattan Griffel of One Month
Make It Competitive and Celebrate Contributions
We recently ran an Instagram competition where the person who received the most ‘likes’ was awarded a generous gift card. Our team was fighting tooth-and-nail to win, which produced great content and was a lot of fun.
– Chris Kelly of Convene
Reward Participation But Don’t Require It
I’d love if every team member wanted to contribute to our blog, to guest blog and to write for social media. I encourage it and give them the time they need to do a great job. But I’m also aware that writing and promotion aren’t for everyone. If an employee is awesome at their job but hates writing, then so be it. Everyone contributes their best in their own way.
– Vik Patel of Nexcess
Align Interests and Promote Individuality
Encourage employees to create their own unique brand, then promote theirs and they’ll promote the company’s. The key is to align the goals and interests of your employees with the company’s and vise versa. Your employees are not robots; they’re unique and show that through their social media posts. But as long as they share common goals, they’ll willingly help your company’s branding efforts.
– David Tomas of Cyberclick
Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC members generate billions of dollars in revenue and have created tens of thousands of jobs.