With content marketing, there are three general channels most brands consider: owned media (your website, social media), paid media (advertising) and earned media. This last piece is particularly compelling, as it involves people sharing your content with others.
However, there’s another means of content distribution gaining hold in the world of marketing: employed media. It’s free, respected and reaches a large audience. Employed media is basically content that your employees share within their own social networks.
Related: How effective is content marketing?
This can be highly effective for a number of reasons, including:
- Employees are natural brand ambassadors: If your employees are excited about your company, they provide a credible source of information for their friends and followers.
- You can widen your audience: Anyone on social media today has an audience, and some are bigger than others. Tap into these networks to reach people you might not have otherwise.
- Creating informative, free content: You may also ask your employees to create content to share with others, including articles, blog posts, videos and more. Explore having the people in your company develop content that reflects well on your brand.
Employed media and your business
As you look to implement an employed media strategy within your organization, identify key personnel who may have the ability to create and/or share engaging content. You may need to start small, asking just a handful of people to take on these efforts as you fine-tune your strategy. However, your long-term goal should be to have nearly all of your employees acting as brand ambassadors.
As you increase the number of people engaged in this content strategy, it will be important to stay organized. Consider the following tips:
- Store drafts of content in one place where everyone can access and contribute to it. Google Drive is a great way to do this.
- Keep track of information like the target audience, relevant keywords and who has already shared it.
- Share your content with your coworkers and discuss with them the ways they can use it. Be sure to solicit feedback and suggestions from staff.
- Share your experiences with the rest of the team to encourage one another and get more ideas on future content.
- Monitor and measure your progress and figure out what is working and why. This will help you develop ideas and continually improve your content strategy.
Leveraging the power of employed media can turn all of your staff members into true brand ambassadors, giving you the ability to reach new target audiences.