This podcast audio served as the source for the blog post “Use Your Employees for Content Marketing.”
The transcript was rewritten to produce the blog post, which is the cornerstone of the Shortcut Content system.
Shayla: Welcome to the Shortcut Content Podcast. I’m talking today with Dave Young who is the founder of Shortcut Content. And, Dave, tell me a little bit about how an owner of business or a company might get their employees involved in their content marketing?
Dave: What we’ve discovered over five years of producing content for our customers this way, is that many of our customers, our customers are people like chiropractors and lawyers and heating and air conditioning companies, they’ve had a lot of success, if they get some of their other experts involved in helping create the content. So if you’re a chiropractor and you have a physical therapist working in your office, they can create content as well. If you’re an HVAC company, getting some of your technicians involved can really be helpful.
And then, I think, on the backside of creating content, if you’re not using Shortcut Content, and you’re just creating your own content marketing pieces, getting employees involved can be as simple as making sure that everybody knows that when we post something new on Facebook, we should all just share it out to our friends. Just have a little bit of pride in our work and that you’re willing to spread the word a little bit, because Facebook and other social media, they’re not as freely sharing as your business content as they used to be. So it sometimes helps to share that out in your network of employees and friends, at least convince them to help you out in that effort.
Shayla: You mentioned the word “expert,” and I don’t think a lot of people may view themselves of that, if they aren’t on the top ring of their company. So tell me why an employee may actually be considered an expert in what they do.
Dave: Well, you hired them to work for your company. I think especially in a skills based company, if there are people that are out doing the job that your company’s getting paid to do, there’s certainly, and they may not be the researcher, they may not be the person that’s developing the product, but they’re out there in the field where the rubber meets the road. They’re talking to customers. And even if they can’t tell you all the technical details of particular product or service, they can certainly shares stories about how your products and services have changed the lives of your customers.
For many people, that’s I would say as important or more important in convincing people that you’re the company that they should do business with. The human mind reacts very well to story and especially if you can tell the story of someone who used your prodcut or service and benefited from it.
I can give you a example if you’d like in the form of a story. We have a client who is a chiropractor and he’s been doing our podcasts and blog post service for a number of years and what often happens with him is when a new patient walks into the office, this is somebody that he’s never met before, and the first words out of his mouth is just to introduce himself and shake their hand. Their reaction is often, “Oh my gosh. I feel like I know you already, because I’ve heard your voice on your website.” And that is something that may not be the sole reason that they came into his office, but it certainly didn’t hurt. And it certainly helped deepen that relationship even at the moment when they actually meet face-to-face for the very first time.
Shayla: And if anybody listening to the podcast today, Dave, wants to know how to get their employees really deeply involved in their content marketing, how do they reach out to you and get that started?
Dave: We’re pretty easy to get a hold of at shortcutcontent.com. We’ve got a phone number and contact forms and all that.
Shayla: Thanks, Dave.