People Join Teams, Not Companies
If we’re talking about top-of-the-funnel content that’s designed to build brand in the right circles with the right people, you’d be wise to focus your efforts on helping the teams at your company promote themselves as groups and as individuals.
30-second read (+0:54 video)
If you take nothing else away from this post, just remember that.
Promoting company culture was the hot topic a few years ago.
Team culture (aka micro-culture) is Employer Branding 2.0.
Why? It’s simple:
We work in teams—as focused, connected cohorts solving problems and build things...together.
As a result, each of these ecosystems develops its own vibe, its own energy, its own personality, and faces its own unique challenges.
That’s micro-culture. And that’s what people opt into.
Let’s simplify this whole thing.
If we’re talking about top-of-the-funnel content that’s designed to build brand in the right circles with the right people, you’d be wise to focus your efforts on helping the teams at your company promote themselves as groups and as individuals.
The content framework is straightforward:
What are they doing, building, making, and creating?
What challenges are they facing and how are they working to overcome them?
What and who makes them, them?
What is their take on your industry and how/why can/should it evolve and improve?
Tactically (choose 1+):
Develop a portfolio of team podcasts. (Perfect for sales and marketing.)
Launch team-level blogs or newsletters. (Every technical team should have one.)
Have at least one person from each team building a PB wherever their peers are spending time online.
At a minimum, a leader from each team should be working to become an industry thought leader. (Let’s be super honest: this is their professional insurance if nothing else. It’s just smart.)
We can all think of an in-house function leader who’s doing this really well. They’re top of mind in your industry. You trust them, and they’re certainly someone you’d want to work with.
Bottom line: You can waste a lot of time and money creating things to promote your company and its culture. Or, you can spend much less time and much less money enabling and supporting the teams at your company in creating what’s relevant, relatable, and useful to their industry peers.
You choose.