content governance: planning for success throughout the content life cycle
DESCRIPTION
Content governance allows organizations to determine priorities, assign responsibility, and establish detailed guidelines for creating and managing consistent, high quality web content. Sure, it’s not the sexiest thing in the world, but a well thought out content governance plan provides a solid foundation for achieving short and long-term content goals while maintaining a smooth editorial workflow. This presentation will examine how a content governance plan provides guidance at every stage of the content life cycle including: Planning Development Revision Distribution Management and Archiving We’ll wrap up with a look at some useful Drupal modules and WordPress plugins that help streamline the content management workflow.TRANSCRIPT
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Content Governance Planning for success throughout the content lifecycle
Chris Mickens, Creative Technical Director, EDUCO @chrismickens
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Is your organization creating web content without a
content governance plan?
#contentjam @chrismickens
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Why content governance?
Allows you to establish detailed guidelines for creating & managing consistent, high quality content by:
#contentjam @chrismickens
Determining priorities
Outlining editorial workflow
Assigning responsibility & ownership
Setting long & short-term content goals
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Informs every stage of the content lifecycle
Planning Development Revision Distribution Management
#contentjam @chrismickens
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– Abraham Lincoln
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
PLANNING
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Priorities• How does content contribute to your overall
marketing plan?
• Who is your audience, and what are their personas?
• Who are your peers and competitors, and how are they performing in the digital space?
• What types of content are you creating and are some more important than others?
#contentjam @chrismickens
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Personas & Content StrategyPersona Topic SM Channel Digital Publications
Marketing Maryweb design best practices
LinkedIn, TwitterMashable, Ad Age, Forbes, marketing blogs
Account Director Ashley
digital marketing strategy
LinkedIn, TwitterAd Age, Mashable, marketing blogs
C-Suite Charliemarketing industry trends
LinkedInAd Age, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, marketing blogs
Eddie Entrepreneur
tech & design trends
Twitter, LinkedIn, FB, Quora
TechCrunch, Mashable, creative blogs
Designer/Developer Diana
tech & design trends
Twitter, LinkedIn, FB, Quora
TechCrunch, Mashable, creative blogs
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Editorial Calendar• Your weekly or monthly schedule of when content will be
published
• Gives you an actionable plan to back up your content strategy with an opportunity to break up content creation into manageable scheduled tasks
• Allows you to plan for content-generating events
• Editorial Calendar roundup post from Crazy Egg:http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/10/18/content-strategy-editorial-calendar/
#contentjam @chrismickens
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http://snapcreativity.com/how-to-create-an-editorial-calendar
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http://www.ptsmultimedia.com/blog/blog-marketing-strategy-5-steps-to-help-increase-leads-with-blogging/
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http://museyroom.com/post/15180815974/a-sample-editorial-calendar
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Resource Management• Prioritize important content and focus on
operating within organizational constraints
• Create guidelines for outsourcing content development
• Establish protocol for requesting graphic design, photography, and image acquisition
#contentjam @chrismickens
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TaxonomyTaxonomy is a system for organizing content
The taxonomy decisions you make can affect the structure of your website and should focus on helping visitors find content that interests them
Categories Tags
CSS Tricks Drupal Business TipsEventsNews Tutorials Reviews
#contentjam @chrismickens
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Categories & TagsTaxonomy can take any form, but the most popular CMS defaults use Categories and Tags, so it’s important to know how they differ
Categories Tags
Think: book chapters Think: book index
Broad groupings of general topics Specific, micro-categorization
Could be structurally integrated into your site, so additions or modifications will involve some review process
Free-flowing and easy to add, but don’t forget that a one-item tag is frustrating and useless to visitors
Put a lot of thought into these in the up-front because they’re fairly static
Should be audited on a regular basis to improve clarity and eliminate overlap
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Miller’s Law & Chunking• Miller’s Law: the number of objects an average
human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2
• Chunking is used by the brain’s short-term memory as a method for keeping groups of information accessible for easy recallhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
#contentjam @chrismickens
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– Yogi Berra
“If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.”
DEVELOPMENT
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Editorial Guide
#contentjam @chrismickens
Voiceand Tone
Pointof View
Grammar and
Punctuation
PreferredTerms
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Style Guide
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Formattingand
Layout
Headingsand
Subheads
Linksand
Buttons
ImageUsage and
Format
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– Syndrome, ‘The Incredibles’
“When everyone is super… no one will be”
REVISION
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Roles & Responsibilities• Provide clear and defined boundaries with checks and
balances
• Identify knowledge gaps
• Allow team members to take ownership of stages in the content development process
• Align knowledge, capabilities, and responsibilities to the role and not the individual to allow for team changes and growth
#contentjam @chrismickens
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Editorial WorkflowThis workflow will be unique, and planning for it will allow you to acquire CMS tools to support your needs
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Education & Training• Create a repository for training and how-to
materials
• Determine training prerequisites for certain roles and permissions
• Establish on-going education and certification recommendations and requirements
#contentjam @chrismickens
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– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
DISTRIBUTION
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Publishing & Sharing
• Determine Timing, Channel, and Frequency
• Burrito Principle: catch people during down timestayclassy.org/blog/the-best-times-to-post-to-social-media-introducing-the-burrito-principle/
• Post Smarter Right Meow: target peak times by channel blog.sumall.com/journal/timing-everything-post-smarter-meow.html
#contentjam @chrismickens
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Activity Date MessagePublish ‘How to Make a Sitemap'
Tu 9/30
LinkedIn Post Tu 9/30Trying to figure out your website content? Creating a sitemap will help guide your process. Learn how to make your sitemap in under an hour >>
Tweet Tu 9/30Working on your website? We’ve got some new sitemap design tips, just published this week >>
LinkedIn Post Th 10/2 Working on your website? Creating your sitemap doesn’t need to be a chore. Here’s our step-by-step guide >>
Tweet Th 10/2 Here’s our guide to sitemap design, new this week >>
Facebook Post Th 10/2
If you’re working on a website, try making the sitemap first. It’s easier than it sounds, and your first draft takes about an hour. To help, we created a step-by-step guide to sitemap design.
Tweet F 10/3If you liked this week’s sitemap design tips, check out 6 Steps for Planning Your Website Content from @cate
Tweet F 10/3 Shout out to Cate Conroy (@cate)
Tweet W 10/6In case you missed it last week, here’s our new step-by-step guide to sitemap design
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Performance Benchmarks• Social Media: # of shares per channel; clicks per
follower; engagement rate (FB)
• Emails: # of opens; % of click-throughs
• eBooks & White papers: # of downloads
Pay attention to how shares, likes, and comments convert to page views from new and returning visitors and measure performance internally and against competitors
#contentjam @chrismickens
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– Mike Tyson
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
MANAGEMENT
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Responding to Issues• Inquiries, feedback, and criticism
Establish priorities, tone, and standard responses
• Inflammatory or abusive comments Outline # of strikes banning policy; Avoid feeding the trolls
• Controversial/offensive content Develop response protocol such as 3 A’s: Acknowledge, Apologize, Act
#contentjam @chrismickens
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Content Audit• What content types will be audited and how
often?
• What criteria will be used to judge content strengths and weaknesses?
• Annie Cushing’s (exhaustive) Audit Checklist: bit.ly/audit-checklist
#contentjam @chrismickens
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Republishing Content• Rewrite, refresh, republish, or just promote again?
• Evergreen content is quality, useful content that is relevant to readers for a long period of time http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-complete-list-of-evergreen-content-ideas-for-your-blog
• Plan for annual or seasonal content
#contentjam @chrismickens
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If you like…
Consistent, unified messaging
Quality content
Clear expectations
Ownership & empowerment
ROI and marketing goals
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…and you hate
Content that’s all over the map
Micromanaging
Dropping the ball
Duplicating efforts
ABJECT FAILURE
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Content Governance is
YOUR BUDDY!
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Modules & Plugins
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Drupal (D7) Modules• drupal.org/project/scheduler: Allow nodes to be published and
unpublished on specified dates
• drupal.org/project/workbench: Provide simplified content editing interface; access and editorial workflow control
• drupal.org/project/revisioning: Configure workflows to create, moderate and publish content revisions
• drupal.org/project/workflow: Create workflows to create, moderate and publish content based on permissions
• drupal.org/project/maestro: Pretty intense workflow engine with visual workflow editor
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WordPress Plugins• wordpress.org/plugins/oasis-workflow: (Free/Pro Version)
Automate workflow processes with visual workflow designer; role-based routing; process history; reminders
• wordpress.org/plugins/content-progress: Manage workflow marking content as complete, partial, or needing review; add notes
• wordpress.org/plugins/edit-flow: Engage in editorial collaboration with calendars, statuses, comments, notifications, user groups, and content budgets
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Thank you!
Chris Mickens, Creative Technical Director, EDUCO www.educowebdesign.com @chrismickens