It’s important to take great care when companies are creating any sort of effective content for their target audience. That’s why companies also need to have a content management workflow, so they’ll avoid having their content be immediately published as soon as it’s finished.
There are several steps in between creation and publication, such as editing and fact-checking. Audiences can quickly become upset if they see a company is sharing false or careless information, and it’s best to avoid walking into that sort of issue by creating a content management workflow.
Content Management Workflow Essentials
It’s not simply enough to have the right people working on the content creation process – companies have to outline the process itself inside the workflow to create more effective and high quality content.
Workflow
A content management workflow is simply the series of tasks that a company needs to do to take its content from a simple idea into a published piece in an effective way.
Although the workflow outlines all the different processes, it’s also supposed to rely on the tools, people, and resources that are needed in the content creation process.
The people that are involved in the content creation process are writers, strategists, managers, and editors.
All of their tasks such as planning, writing, editing, publishing, and distributing are placed inside the workflow, but every function isn’t essential for each type of content a company creates.
The workflow can change in accordance with the type of content.
That means there’s going to be a different workflow if a company wants to create social media content, compared to the workflow for a blog post, or even a newsletter.
Management
If it’s not established beforehand, the workflow of each piece of content a company wants to create is going to end up becoming very confusing and complicated for everyone involved in the process.
That’s why companies need to begin by outlining each part of the process, as well as the resources, tools, and people that are going to be involved in every step.
There are several steps in the content creation process, including strategy, plan, creation, review, publishing, and analysis.
Although this is a basic outline of a content management workflow, companies should also include any additional processes they need to do depending on the type of content that’s being created.
Tools
It’s important for companies to provide their content creation teams with the right tools where they can create, share, manage and edit the content itself.
There are plenty of content management systems available for companies, and some might even prefer to have one created specifically for their needs.
As the content marketing industry continues to grow, companies will have to increase their content tech stack to accommodate for that growth, and by utilizing a good software or platform, they can easily manage to do that.
People
With the help of a content workflow, companies can focus on all the steps they need to take to take an idea and turn it into content that’s published for the target audience. However, the people involved in that process are essential, and they’re a key element of the content management workflow.
These are all the people that will be in charge of handling the tasks inside the different stages of the content creation process.
It’s essential for companies to have a content workflow tool so they can keep up with the demands and tasks of their content strategies. However, when creating a content workflow, there are several steps that companies need to take to get the most out of whatever platform they’re using.
All of the people, tools, and processes that are necessary to execute a content strategy are essential in listing inside a content workflow. However, to truly create a content workflow, companies have to take several steps too.
Content
The first step in the content workflow creation process is deciding what content the company wants to create.
That can be anything from a newsletter to a social media post. In fact, businesses these days have plenty of options as there are a number of communication channels they can use to publish their content, which means they can create blog posts, video content, infographics, photos, and more.
However, that means each type of content will have to go through the entire process of getting a workflow assigned to it as well.
Tasks
Once a company has decided on the types of content it wants to create, it needs to outline all of the steps that are necessary to get that type of content from strategy to publication. For example, if a company wants to create a blog post, it should start by strategizing the topics for that blog post.
The next step would be planning the content that’s going to be covered for that topic, and then creating the blog post itself.
However, the process doesn’t end there, as the piece isn’t ready for publication quite yet. After the blog post is created, an editor needs to go over it to revise and fact-check everything in it, and only then will it be ready for publishing.
Then, after it’s published the company needs to keep track of its performance and analyze the data to figure out how to improve the same type of content in the future. However, all of those steps are relatively broad, and depending on what the company wants to do, it can always expand on them further.
For instance, during the strategizing step, the company can also conduct keyword and market research, audit its past content, and create buyer personas to ensure it’s going to be creating content that will truly cater to the interests of the target audience while benefiting the SEO efforts at the same time.
Roles and Timing
After all of the processes have been written down in the workflow, it’s time for the company to decide who’s going to do each one. During this step, companies can find out if anyone involved in the process needs additional help as well.
Then, for example, with a blog post, the strategizing process will be assigned to a content strategist, the planning to the content manager, and so on.
However, once all the responsibilities have been assigned, the company also has to figure out how much time each step is going to take to complete the entire workflow.
