A lot of the companies we talk to understand the importance of content and even have ideas of what they need to create but, when it comes to the actual process of creation, they may not have the tools internally to get the job done.
For anyone in that boat, there is a way for your customers to create content that will then seed your entire content strategy. Let’s get into the process of how to create that community and acquire these ambassadors on your company’s behalf.
A story
One of our customers who has exemplified how to build a creator program is a trucking company.
They’re competing in what is arguably the most difficult hiring market in history because, due to the wage gap and other reasons, finding trustworthy truck drivers who will commit to your company and do a good job is near impossible.
This company, however, has been able to recruit the top talent in their field by leveraging the stories of drivers and people from their community into content that is self-perpetuating within their audience.
As a result, this company has enjoyed two of its most profitable years while the rest of its industry is in disarray.
The specifics
From a high level, we used to call this UGC (User-Generated Content). The idea was you have a customer base you want to help your company create content. There are a lot of reasons for this.
- Authenticity: User-Generated Content is instantly authentic to your customer base because the creators are your customer base.
- Problem-solving: They know what problems your customers are facing, they know what your audience wants, and they’re able to address it because they are a part of that group.
- Innate trust: These people have innate trust with the audience because they’re not part of your brand. They are a part of the audience you’re serving.
There are a lot of implicit benefits to having your community help you create content, but how do you do it? What are the practical steps?
#1 — Formalize and create a job description
We talked about this when Nicole Warshauer was on the show a while back, but the first thing to do is to formalize and create a job description for this ambassadorship.
- Give it a title. You might call it being a company ambassador, some type of influencer, just being a community member, creator, or something else but you need to formalize that internally.
- Explain what the commitment is. What are the expected hours and specific types of assets you want to be created through this relationship? Stipulate that in the job description, just like if you were hiring someone.
The number one mistake people make when they try to do something like this is say, “Oh, you guys just make some stuff for us and we’ll pay you for it or we’ll give you free swag.” No, none of that.
What you put into a program like this is what you will get out of it.
If you want professional content you can use to represent your brand, you need to treat your ambassadors like professionals in how you recruit them and how you communicate with them during the engagement.
#2 — Advertise in your existing customer base
Promote the job description within your existing community. If you have a customer base of any size, the odds are someone has the skills. Whether it’s a hobby or a previous job they had, someone has the skills to create content that is effective for the different platforms your brand might be acting on.
Our exemplary trucking company has 800 drivers, so they just advertised within those 800 drivers: “Anybody a YouTuber? Anybody an Instagram creator or enjoy making content for those platforms? If so, let us know. We might have an opportunity with you.”
#3 — Set clear expectations
I kind of alluded to this before but set very clear expectations on the volume of content you want. That all needs to be defined and shared with your content creators.
- Is it one post a week? Is it 10 posts a day? Is it somewhere in between?
- What is the timing? How often do you want to hear from these people? How often do you expect assets to be delivered?
- Do they need to be part of any meetings or creative meetings or otherwise?
- What is the quality expectation?
If you don’t set and stipulate some of these things up-front, then you’re going to be upset on the back end when there’s a hastily put-together video that is unusable. You need to think through that and do it in a professional way.
Outcomes
If you do, then you’re going to get a library of authentic content from these creators to use in your marketing funnels: podcasts, YouTube videos, and social platforms (which is probably where it will be built for initially).
This can help a lot of you smaller companies who have the ideas, have the know-how, know where the problem areas are, but can’t necessarily execute. This is something that will bring you some low-cost assets you can repurpose and further develop into campaigns.
That trucking company has been able to take those assets and leverage them in a bunch of different ways to build a brand that is now looked to as an advocate in their space, which is a huge competitive advantage in a market where finding drivers is impossible.
You as well can build a brand around advocacy for your customer base by involving these ambassadors in what you’re doing.