More and more marketers of all ilks – inbound, outbound, social, digital, content – are being asked to add content activities to their list of responsibilities.
These marketers must get their hands on:
- Who is involved (and I mean all ai) in creating content
- How is content created?
- What content is created by who
- Where content is conceived, created and stored
- When and how long it takes for content to happen
- Why content is created (what is the motivation behind creating content?)
- How to build a framework to bring order and structure to all of this
Evolving expectations mean that content marketers can no longer focus solely on the outputs of their content marketing efforts. They must now also review and build, deploy, and manage the framework for content operations in their organization.
# Content marketers can no longer focus solely on their #ContentMarketing efforts. Time to add content operations to the mix, said @cathymcknight via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
What exactly are content manipulations?
Content activities is a big picture view of everything content related in your organization, from strategy to creativity, administration for performance measurement and content management. It all happens frequently at companies – large and small – we consult at The Content Advisory, content activities are left to evolve/play naturally.
The groups said formal content activities were not needed because "everything is working fine." Translation: No one wants to take on the task of bringing people together. No one wants to deal with multiple teams' reasoning about why the way surname doing things is the right/best/only way to do it. So the content teams keep saying everything is fine.
Newsflash – it's not.
It's not just who does what when there's content.
Done right, content operations allow efficiency and effectiveness in terms of procedure , people, technology and costs. Active content is essential to planning create, manage and analyze strategy from concept to hosting for all types of content across all channels (paid, earned, owned) and across the business.
The content performance framework supports and enables a brand to deliver the best possible customer experience throughout the audience journey.
The #ContentOperations framework is documented, in effect, supporting the brand's ability to @cathymcknight via @CMIContent said. Click to Tweet
It is not as difficult as it sounds.
What keeps many content, governance, and marketing teams from adopting a formal content strategy and operational framework is one of the biggest, most challenging questions of anything new: “We Where do we start?"
Here are some help in high level, easy- to follow steps.
1. State the purpose of the content
Purpose is the “why” the team does what they do. It is the passion and inspiration for everything that follows . In terms of content, it is the locomotive for all content efforts and is never really finished. Consider it the North Star for all content endeavors.
In Start With Why , author Simon Sinek says succinctly: “All organizations start with WHY, but only organizations keep the WHY clear year after year. ”
All organizations start with a WHY, but only the great ones keep the WHY clear year after year, @simonsinek said via @cathymcknight and @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
2. Define content tasks
Once the purpose of your teams' content efforts is clear (and approved), it's time to define your content mission. Is your content mission to attract new hires? Building brand promotion? Deepen customer relationships? You have buy no from the organization, especially the C-suite?
Can you clarify your mission? Have you created a unique voice or value proposition?
Answering all of those questions will strengthen your content mission.
3. Set and monitor several core goals and key results
Once your content mission is complete, it's time to figure out how to define success.
Content is called property for a reason; they have real value and contribute to the bottom line of your business. Accordingly, you need to measure their effectiveness. One of the best ways to do this is to set up OKRs – goals and key results. OKRs are an effective goal setting and leadership tool to communicate goals and milestones for achieving them.
OKRs typically define a goal — an overall business goal to be achieved — and three to five key, objective, measurable results. Finally, checkpoints are established to ensure that the end goal is achieved.
Let's say you set a goal to implement an enterprise content calendar and a collaboration tool. Key outcomes to monitor may include:
- Documenting technical and user requirements
- Research, demonstration and tool selection
- Deploy and demo the tool.
You will track factors such as securing budgets and approvals, defining requirements, working through procurement, etc.
One more thing: Make sure OKRs are verifiable by identifying the source and Metric system will provide quantifiable, measurable results.
Ensure goals and key results are verifiable by identifying sources and metrics, @cathymcknight via @CMIContent said. Click to Tweet
4. Organize your content team
With OKRs, you need people to get things done. What will the structure be like? Who will report to whom?
Would you use a centralized command and control approach, a decentralized but powered structure, or something in between? The group's structure and organization must operate within the larger organization's structure and culture.
This is a sample org chart that we at TCA have developed for a solid Fortune 50. At the top is content functionality before it splits into two avenues – one for brand communication and another for content hub excellence:
Click to enlarge
5. Formalize the governance model
No matter how the framework is built, you need a governance model. Governance ensures your content operations are in line with agreed goals, objectives, and standards.
Have a senior management advocate – ideally someone from the C-suite – lead the way in setting up the governance structure. It's the only way to be recognized and budget .
To stay connected with your organization and content needs, it's a good idea to have a team of editorial advisors – also known as editorial boards, content committees, or content key holders. This team should include representatives from all functional groups within the business that use the content as well as the complex participants in delivering the content. The team should provide input, monitor, and act as a point of contact for the rest of the organization.
Pointing to Simon Sinek again about the wisdom here: “Passion alone cannot cut it off. For passion to exist, it needs structure. A why without it, the possibility of success is very low. ”
6. Create effective processes and workflows
Adhering to the governance model requires foresight to all content processes.
How is content created from start to finish? You can see 27 ways to do it today. Ideally, your goal should be to have the majority (70% or more) of your content – infographics, ads, CEO keynotes, etc. – be created in a similar way.
You may need to do some work to understand how many ways content is created and published today, including who is involved (internal and external resources), how to track progress , who implements and approves the content and what happens to the content upon completion . Once documented, you can reasonable arrangement and streamline these into a core workflow, with permission for exceptional and exceptional content needs and requirements.
This example of a simple approval process for social content (developed for a global multi-brand CPG company) consists of three levels. The first includes the process for a social content request. Level two shows the content production and scheduling process, and level three shows hosting and measuring success for that asset:
Click to enlarge
7. Deploy the most relevant technology stack
How many tools are you using? Many organizations grow through acquisition, so they inherit duplicate components of their content stack. They may have two or three content management systems (CMS) and some marketing automation platforms.
Do the checks, remove the redundancy, and simplify where possible. Use the capabilities inherent in the content stack to automate where you can. For example, if you run a campaign on the first Monday of every month, implement technology to automate that process.
The technology to power your content framework doesn't have to be fancy. Excel spreadsheets can be one of your most important tools.
The goal is to simplify the way content happens. What it looks like can vary widely between organizations or even between groups within an organization.
Adopting a robust content operations framework requires cultural, technological, and organizational changes. It requires funding from the top of the organization and adheres to corporate goals at all levels of the organization.
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Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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