People who work with the company's services and products on a daily basis have insights that cannot be found anywhere else. However, when a business owner comes out and raises the idea that employees help with branding, some team members may feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed.
In order to motivate employees to become more involved in branding, tact, understanding and the right approach are required. Therefore we asked 15 members of the Young Entrepreneur Council:
How can you encourage employees to help with branding efforts without being demanding or intrusive?
Here's what they had to say:
Every quarter we assign committees to take on various new branding and marketing initiatives. These are not cutbacks in daily tasks, but projects that help build our brand. We give them a budget and allow them to set goals individually. At the end of the quarter we have a team day on which these committees present their work. The team enjoys the structure and we get a lot of great projects done.
– Tony Scherba, Yeti
Our team is small, but we were lucky enough to attend some really amazing conferences around the world. Traveling and enjoying these experiences made our team proud to be with us. This goes hand in hand with your own desire to support our brand efforts. They understand that the better we are and the better known our brand is, the more options we have.
– Zach Binder, Bell + Ivy
Invite your employees to demonstrate the talent your company offers. You can hold a personal interview session with anyone, which is then streamed on the company's website and in the media. Employees will likely be excited to be recognized for their success and will share this content with others. Interested parties can identify with one of your employees and contact them directly.
– Jared Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.
I ask my employees, mainly software developers, to write career tips, and we share them on LinkedIn, Medium and other media. It helps us spread our brand among developers. The staff is enthusiastic about writing such content because it relates to the current job and is easy to write. It helps us to attract more applicants for our job requirements.
– Piyush Jain, SIMpalm
You can schedule a short, casual meeting with your team to discuss the branding and see what new ideas come up. You don't have to force them to become brand ambassadors. Rather, you want to get them thinking about the branding opportunities of the future. Encourage them to develop their best ideas. You can even offer a price to the person with the best idea.
– Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
Hold a workshop and be fun. Keep it short and sweet (one to two hours) and stimulate the imagination and discussion. For example, I ask employees to bring an object that reflects their vision for the brand and an image that reflects the personality of the brand. Employees describe their show-and-tell articles. Then I take in all the input and design brand attributes, advantages, values and the essentials.
– Robby Scott Berthume, Bull & Beard
Due to the growth of various industries and disruptors, people are more likely to change jobs than 20 years ago. If you want employees to participate in the company's branding, you must provide external reasons. People who take part in the company's charity events are praised via email, track who logs in to LinkedIn or other social media, and reward them with practical, elegant loot.
– Duran Inci, Optimum7
If you want your employees to help with the branding, invest in the swag company. Every year we give our employees high-quality branded clothing such as T-shirts, sweaters, hats and so on. Our employees appreciate the free gifts and carry their company jokes, which is an excellent way to increase brand awareness.
– Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
If you ask your team for branded item feedback, it will start to do more about the brand. This is the best way to introduce them to the idea of helping with brand initiatives. Many social media images with team members are also a great way to get them to share, especially if they are tagged on company photos.
– Nicole Munoz, Nicole Munoz Consulting, Inc.
Create a game in which employees share company contributions and try to get the most engagement on their share. The employees who show the most commitment at the end of the quarter receive a bonus in the form of an Amazon gift card. Gamification improves the customer experience, but can also encourage your employees to get involved in the business.
– John Turner, SeedProd LLC
Involve the entire team in brand building efforts. By that I mean that they are not only asked to republish something from a Facebook company page, but that they are actually an integral part of the process. We recently started shooting a YouTube series where our people are the key characters in every episode. It's appealing, it's fun, everyone loves it, and it works great for our brand.
– Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
We ask our employees to share our content for the same reasons that consumers are encouraged to share our posts. If you found one of our posts helpful, we would be happy if you could share what you found with your friends. We don't monitor our employees on social media because we hire people who tend to share our posts because they have found value.
– Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
Most people already have public and professional social media profiles. You can ask them to help you with your branding by posting information about your company on LinkedIn and elsewhere. You can help by creating a template or format that fits your brand.
– Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
Branding is as important to social media as it is to any other platform, and you can use it to create a social media branding program. Learn how to apply branding strategies to your company's social media accounts to gain experience and support all branding.
– Jared Atchison, WPForms
You can make it easier for your employees to brand your company by creating impressive graphics that they can use. This eliminates the additional effort of creating posts on social media. By creating fun and “cool” graphics, you can develop a sense of pride and willingness to help brand your business.
– Blair Williams, MemberPress
Image: Depositphotos.com
