Commitment to content - that is a challenge we hear about every day.   How do I make sure I am creating and sharing content regularly? How do we as a team help each other deliver on our promises.

This is what I have learnt over the last year helping people attain commitment to content marketing and social selling.

First of all make it easy (see Passle :)  But that alone is not enough.  You need a process and you need commitment.  You cannot just go out and demand commitment though.  It does not work.

First of all you need to get very busy experts interested in creating content.  We have found to introduce content creation to a team, gamification works a treat.  A simple team vs team competition with points for posts and points for shares works well.  No grand prizes necessary - just a bottle of bubbles, a cheap-as-chips trophy and the promise of bragging rights.  After 5 weeks new habits are formed.  You get used to creating content and importantly it's been fun.

What happens next we discovered is really important.

Ask your content creators what they are happy to commit to - one piece of content a month, one every two weeks - ask them.  To be clear - do not tell them what you want, ask them what they are happy to commit to, and do not judge!  

Ensure that the team is aware of the commitments everyone else has made and make a deadline event for the use of their content - a newsletter for example (internal or external) is perfect.

Heap praise and reward on those who are committed.  Report success, make sure the boss is acknowledging their efforts and ensure they are getting feedback from the content they are creating and sharing.

Most important of all, remind them of the commitment they made.  The simple act of sending an email - that either congratulates them when they hit their target or nudges them if they have not - is incredibly powerful.  

How do I know this - because it's exactly what happens to me.  Today I will receive a congratulations note as I am now on target.  I have done what I promised, what I committed to.  This commitment is not just to our head of marketing and not just to my my team, but to myself.

In the end commitment is the key to long term content marketing success.  After all content marketing is a marathon not a sprint.