9. People
YOU KNOW WHAT’S GREAT about the Web? There’s always room for more content. And, thanks to the magic of distributed publishing, anyone can do it! Your website can just magically expand to include everyone’s everything. And if stuff starts to get a little disorganized on your main site? Just get a different URL and call it a “microsite”!
Soooo ... how’s that working out for you? Not so swell? Believe it or not, it’s often not the content, itself, that’s the problem. In this chapter, we’ll focus on the people components of the content strategy quad:
• Workflow: What processes, tools, and human resources are required for content initiatives to launch successfully and maintain ongoing quality?
• Governance: How are key decisions about content and content strategy made? How are changes initiated and communicated?
Although they’re two different words with two different meanings, workflow and governance are not easily separated. If you have workflow defined but no real standards or oversight to guide the people involved, it’s already broken. Similarly, if you have all sorts of policies and people in charge but no process for implementation, then what’s the point?
In this chapter, we’ll talk about:
• Defining ownership and roles
• Designing content processes
• Making it all happen
Whether you need totally new processes, roles, and tools or you just need to refine what’s already in place, by documenting workflow and governance, you’ll have a very clear vision of how, when, and by whom the work will get done. And, with better processes and more clearly defined roles, people will be much better prepared (and, likely, happier) when it comes to creating and caring for content.
Defining Ownership and Roles
So, this content. Whose job is it? Who’s responsible? Who owns it?
It’s safe to bet that there are lots of different people responsible for different aspects of your content and content processes. From requests to creation to publication, there can be all kinds of cooks in the kitchen. But, is anyone clear on who’s really doing what? If not, you’re going to end up with duplicate tasks, unclear authority, and a general lack of quality control.
It’s critical for each person to know what their role is and how it fits into the larger content process. This is why defining ownership and roles is one of the most important aspects of workflow and governance.
Let’s spend the next several pages taking a good, close look at all the different ways content ownership and roles might be defined and assumed.
Business Units: Ownership at a Macro Level
There isn’t one typical place for content to live within an organization. It is often shared between several departments or business units. So, who should have the final say about your website content?
It might seem easy to immediately disqualify, say, the CMS team, by saying that techies shouldn’t be in charge of content. But, aren’t they the ones typically responsible for publishing and archiving the content? That’s sort of important. Often, they’re also the folks who end up (by default) writing the metadata that makes your content findable, both by external search engines and your own site’s engine. These things matter.
Maybe brand and marketing should take a back seat. Except, you know, they probably want input over little things like brand voice, messaging, style guide considerations, hierarchy of information, calls to action ... right.
How about the web strategy team? Can they let go of ownership? Maybe content isn’t that important to a successful user experience. Oh. Wait. It is.
And finally, the product/service SMEs, who probably are tasked with reviewing (or even writing) web content, on top of the 18 million other things they’re supposed to be doing. We sort of need their input to make sure things are accurate and up to date.
Content needs a home
There’s no denying that shared ownership is messy. That’s why, ideally, content needs a place of its own—a home base that facilitates cross-team collaboration wherever content is involved:
Even if you can’t create an entirely new business unit for content strategy—or you can’t right away—you can designate a person or several people to have content strategy as part of their job description(s). And give those people latitude to be envoys to other business units. Content strategy ambassadors, if you will. That will help you ensure all of the business units understand each other and collaborate. Really, it can happen.
Individuals: The Responsible Parties
No matter how the business units are set up, behind every thriving content project, there is an army of individuals keeping the content functional and fresh. The number of individuals, and the specific roles they play, varies by organization.
In addition to content strategists (see job description in Chapter 3, Solution), let’s discuss some of the common roles you may want to consider for your content team.
Note: These roles do not need to be job titles; they are areas of responsibility. One person may fulfill several of these roles at once, and/or there may be several people with the same role. It all depends on your situation.
Web editor-in-chief
A web editor-in-chief helps to establish and enforce all web content policies, standards, and guidelines. Depending on the scale of web properties and initiatives, the editor-in-chief may serve either in an executive function—largely to oversee teams of web editors, and to facilitate their interaction with other business units and web contributors—or in an editorial function, working directly with web writers to ensure content quality and accuracy.
This is the person who is ultimately responsible for setting and communicating standards that will shape your web content, whether on your corporate website, your intranet, in social media, or anywhere else your company distributes content on the Web.
The editor-in-chief may also be responsible for the education and professional growth of content creators. He may also take the lead on educating requesters, providers, and reviewers/approvers on what your web content standards and processes are, and how they can expect to engage with creators and publishers.
Additionally, the editor-in-chief should be a key stakeholder in any content strategy initiative. No one will be closer to your organization’s web content, and no one will be more deeply invested in its constant improvement.
Finally, if anyone is going to be familiar with the day-to-day challenges of dealing with web content, it will be your editor-in-chief. This person should weigh in on decisions like resource planning and management, content management technology purchases, and other operational considerations.
A web editor-in-chief:
• Sets and communicates web content standards
• Motivates and develops the staff
• Participates in web strategic planning
• Facilitates web content planning
• Participates in web operational planning
• May help make the business case for content
• Is empowered to say “no”
Web manager or editor
Web editors plan and oversee the publication of content. This may involve writing original copy, or coordinating and editing contributions from others. The web editor also maintains the web editorial calendar and maintenance plan. Although the role is usually mostly journalistic, it may also require technical skills and strategic planning abilities.
This role is necessary to maintain content quality, consistency, and relevance on your website. The web editor functions as a gatekeeper, and ensures new content is consistent with site strategy and relevant to users. The larger your website, the more web editors you will likely need.
A web manager or editor:
• Sets guidelines for the editorial tone, style, and voice of content
• Establishes a style guide and editorial procedures
• Oversees the development of content
• Develops and oversees the web editorial calendar
• Owns and facilitates the maintenance plan
Content creator
The content creator is responsible for producing accurate, compelling text that clearly conveys the required messages to the target audience and supports your content strategy objectives.
Because the bulk of the content on the Web is text, most content creators are writers. However, creators may also need to create assets such as images, diagrams, sound, or video, and provide appropriate captions for them. You may have separate content creators for text and other types of content—or one person may source or create all of them.
The content creator may also be responsible for providing metadata, such as keywords and a short description, to accompany each piece of content.
Content creators:
• Develop all required content (text, video, images, etc.)
• Work to enhance, edit, and reformat legacy and newly created web copy to conform to web writing best practices
• Ensure all content conforms to your web SEO requirements and best practices
Sourcing manager or curator
Although it might sound easy to buy or otherwise use content created by another organization, when done well, sourcing content can be a full-time job. Sourcing managers or curators are similar to web editors, except they’re responsible for aggregating or curating content.
They identify appropriate content/content providers and work with the procurement department to negotiate contracts. Curators serve as the primary contact for content providers at all phases of the relationship—from set up to retirement.
A sourcing manager or curator:
• Sets guidelines for content selection and purchase
• Manages the contract renewal process
• Establishes a checklist of ideal content qualities (tone, topic, etc.)
• Adds commentary or context to the content, if necessary
• Develops and oversees the editorial calendar and maintenance plan
Search engine optimization (SEO) specialist
An SEO specialist analyzes your website’s business objectives, content, and intended audiences in order to figure out which SEO strategies will win prominent listings in the results pages of web search engines.
This person should collaborate closely with web editors and writers to ensure keywords and phrases are incorporated into the site content. She should also be in touch with your development team to ensure technical implementation of web pages or content modules isn’t interfering with SEO efforts.
SEO techniques change frequently, so a large part of the SEO specialist’s job involves research, self-study, and reading in order to stay abreast of developments.
SEO specialists:
• Look for ways to improve and track SEO performance
• Identify appropriate keywords based on research and business goals
• Educate content creators and editors on search engine optimization
• Ensure the appropriate keywords are incorporated into content in accordance with SEO best practices
• Review keywords and keyword placement, as part of the content maintenance process
Subject matter expert (SME)
Throughout your organization, there are people who have knowledge on specific topics that they want to convey to your audiences. From marketing and branding to product development and operations, these subject matter experts may be the business owners for the content, or just the super smart people whose insight you need to get the content right. Depending on their role, subject matter experts may:
• Collaborate with the web editor on content planning and prioritization
• Represent their group’s interests in the high-level conversations about content planning, creation guidelines, content resources, site organization, and more
• Review and approve major content launches
• Act as a content source, providing the informationothers neeto create a piece of content, and reviewing the finished content product for accuracy and tone
• Act as a content creator, authoring a piece of content and providing it to the web editor for review
Reviewer and/or approver
Reviewers and approvers include subject matter experts, product or service managers, legal counsel, and other key stakeholders who are able to provide insight and information for the website. These individuals are typically “wrangled” by either the web editor or content strategist during the web content development process.
Web content is not a day-to-day responsibility for these folks, and it’s likely to fall at the bottom of their to-do lists. It’s very important to give reviewers and approvers a timely heads-up about when they’ll be required to spend time with content drafts. It’s all too common to turn over content with a request for review or approval by a certain date, only to have that date come and go without a response.
Should you hire or outsource?
Deciding whether to pay someone from the outside to create your content—or develop the in-house infrastructure to do it yourself—is a big decision. There’s lots to consider.
Julie Vollenweider is the first point of contact for clients who contact Brain Traffic. She offers these guidelines to help you make your decision.
WHO SHOULD YOU HIRE?
WHAT WILL YOU NEED TO DO?
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT?
Committees and Councils: The Extended Family
As we’ve discussed throughout the book, people throughout your organization, and beyond, have a big impact on your content. So, you need to involve your key stakeholders not only in the discovery and definition processes, but on an ongoing basis.
One way to do this is to form councils or committees—groups of informed stakeholders who can provide unique insight into content initiatives at regular intervals. Whether or not they have real decision-making power, the goal of these groups is to ensure your content or content strategy stays aligned with business goals and user needs.
Internal advisory council
With an internal advisory council, SMEs and other stakeholders are asked to weigh in on content activities and decisions. Although the content team is still ultimately responsible for making decisions and doing the work, having a council can be a valuable way to keep stakeholders informed, get people aligned, and understand perspectives from outside the content team.
Some of the most frequent council members are representatives from the following teams:
• Organizational leadership
• IT/site infrastructure
• Analytics/measurement
• Regional/country
• Marketing and offline promotions
• Procurement
• Legal/regulatory
The internal advisory council participates in high-level planning meetings, where the content team presents the content and discusses any relevant issues or problems. Topic areas include:
• Significant changes to the content strategy
• Policies and procedures
• Sourcing/content acquisition plan
• Content measurement and feedback results
• Content retirement and removal
Web councils can become a permanent part of your strategy and planning cycle. As web governance expert Lisa Welchman notes, web councils can also be a temporary way to get people aligned and comfortable with new processes and policies. She says, “Sometimes, this is the council’s most important function. I’ve seen web councils last for 12 to 18 months and then disband not because they were dysfunctional or ineffective, but because it had served its role as a catalyst for [collaboration] around the digital channel.”*
* http://www.welchmanpierpoint.com/blog/establishing-web-council
Either way, internal alignment will always be critical to your content’s success; a web council can help.
Audience advisory committee
Audience (user) advisory committees are a great way to get regular audience feedback on your content. These committees come in different sizes, but a team of 5–7 users is ideal. Often, non-profits use the advisory committee as a way to recognize volunteers who are already involved in the organization. For-profit businesses usually offer incentives for participation.
Ideally, the committee consists of volunteers representing key markets and audience groups (e.g., geographic areas and topic interests). They commit to staying on the committee for a specified length of time (usually a year), and are provided with training/insight on the organization’s goals and objectives.
The committee acts as the users’ voice. They:
• Provide insight into the user experience
• Evaluate current content
• Advise about content gaps
• Identify trends and opportunities in the user community
Good candidates can also be found by promoting the committee on the website itself, or sending an invitation to influential customers or bloggers. Aim for a mix of people who have different levels of involvement and history with the organization. And, be sure to report back to them on how their opinions were incorporated into your content work.
Designing Workflow and Governance Processes
Having defined and assigned the appropriate roles for all the players, your job is to make sure they all work together as efficiently and productively as possible. To do that, you need a process.
When people think about the content development process, here’s what they often imagine:
In reality, content development usually looks a lot more like this:
Once you realize the complexity of the content lifecycle, sitting down to identify or design your content processes can be pretty daunting. The secret to making content process design manageable is to break it down into smaller chunks. We often break the overall process down into these four areas of focus, each of which contain their own complex sub-processes:
• Create/source new content
• Maintain existing content
• Evaluate content effectiveness
• Govern strategies, plans, policies, and procedures
It’s tempting to go down the list, check off these items one by one, and declare your content “officially done.” But, in reality, these activities are part of a continuous lifecycle that repeats and repeats and repeats.
In the next few sections, we’ll discuss things to consider while designing your process. For each of the four areas of focus, we’ll cover:
• Common tasks
• Questions to consider
• Helpful tools
Note: Content processes, as discussed in this chapter, are independent of (although sometimes related to) content management system requirements and design. For more information, refer to Bob Boiko’s book, The Content Management Bible, Chapter 33, “Designing Workflow and Staffing Models.”
Creating and Sourcing Content
Whether you’re creating a whole new site or adding content to an existing site, there is a lot to do. Here are the most common ways new content is introduced to a website:
• Original content creation: Content is created in-house or by a vendor specifically for the use of the organization.
• Curated or aggregated content: Content is sourced from outside the organization and sometimes edited or annotated.
• Content migration: Content is moved from one content property or platform to another.
Common tasks
Often, creating and sourcing content includes the following tasks:
• Plan
• Create or source
• Route
• Revise
• Approve (including legal or regulatory)
• Add metadata
• Test
• Publish
Questions to ask yourself
While designing this stage of the process, you’ll want to know:
• Where do requests for new content come from? Who receives them?
• Which business drivers (such as product launches, financial quarters, holidays, news, events) trigger requests for new content?
• Are there “emergency” content requests that arise? If so, what are they, why are they considered emergencies, and who can submit them?
• What information is most helpful to have before content work begins?
• Who is responsible for drafting/creating/selecting the content?
• Where do you get source material (for creation) or source content (curation/aggregation)?
• If content is curated or migrated, what kind of editorial work needs to happen?
• How are content drafts or selections routed between authors, approvers, and publishers?
• How are contracts negotiated for curated or aggregated content?
• What is a realistic timeframe to expect between a content request and publish date?
• If translation is required, how is it completed? How are translations assigned and approved?
• How does the content get published? Who does it? Does it have to be formatted in a specific way?
• Is there a staging environment, or do you just see the final product? Does the staging environment allow for changes or edits?
Helpful tools
Some tools that help manage this process include:
• Editorial calendar: A spreadsheet that captures future topic ideas, and schedules current content for publishing; includes authors, sources, and deadlines. (See “Tool Spotlight” below.)
• Content requirements checklist: A checklist of preferred content attributes used to determine if existing content or proposed future content is appropriate for your site.
• Curation/aggregation checklist: A checklist of steps required to select, contract, and publish third-party content.
• Migration spreadsheet: A spreadsheet that maps content from one channel, property, or process to another.
Tool spotlight: Editorial calendar
We’re big fans of editorial calendars, and here’s why: They help keep everyone on task and on the same page, which ultimately saves time, money, and heartache.
Creating your calendar
The first step toward a successful editorial calendar is defining why you’re creating it. When you’re defining the purpose for your calendar, be as specific as possible:
• Improve content quality or relevance.
• Integrate content across various channels/brands/business units.
• Fulfill user needs (by profile, lifecycle, or topics of interest).
• Align content with business goals/campaigns/events.
• Measure/record content success or value.
• Keep content creation on a manageable schedule.
• Allocate resources (human and budgetary) or justify resource needs.
• Manage all content creation/curation/maintenance activities.
When identifying purpose, don’t forget to think about:
• Who is going to use the calendar and why?
• Are there multiple audiences that require different levels of information?
• How will it be shared/used?
• Who is going to maintain the calendar?
• How often will it be updated/shared?
• How will you know if the calendar is working?
Pick and prioritize calendar variables
Once you know the purpose, you can start choosing what to include on your calendar. There are literally hundreds of content-related variables that could be tracked on an editorial calendar. List all of the variables/data points you think are relevant to your calendar, then rank them in priority order.
It’s tempting to include every tidbit of information you have, but in this case, less is usually more. Focus your calendar on the top priorities, and consider eliminating the bottom priorities to make your calendar easy to use and maintain.
For example, let’s say you work for an organization that provides services to elementary school teachers. If you’re creating an editorial calendar for your website, you might consider including the following variables:
1. Date (e.g., May 14)
2. Channel (e.g., website, print newsletter, Twitter)
3. Content element (e.g., home page article, newsletter sidebar, video)
4. Teacher profiles (e.g., new teacher, kindergarten teacher)
5. Teachers’ events (e.g., National Teachers Association Convention)
6. Holidays and seasons (e.g., Christmas, autumn)
7. Hot topics (e.g., student testing, school security)
8. Content creator (e.g., web editor, Sue in marketing, third-party provider)
9. Content workflow step (e.g., schedule interviews, get outline approved, create content)
10. Budget (e.g., $5,000)
Depending on your priorities, your calendar will vary. For example, if the purpose of your calendar was to integrate all channels around user hot topics, your calendar might look like this:
Alternatively, if your calendar was mostly intended to manage resources and budgets, it might look like this:
Editorial calendars don’t have to be fancy or complicated. Whatever works for you, works.
Maintaining Content
Once you deliver content anywhere online—particularly on your website—it’s critically important that you maintain the content over time for accuracy, consistency, timeliness, and audience relevance. In other words, your content needs care and feeding. It won’t take care of itself. Whether you’re updating, archiving, or deleting content, you need a documented process for how maintenance gets done.
Common tasks
Often, maintaining content includes the following tasks:
• Plan
• Schedule
• Edit
• Route
• Revise
• Approve (including legal or regulatory)
• Add metadata
• Test
• Publish
• Retire/delete
Questions to ask yourself
While designing this stage of the process, find out:
• What are the triggers for content review, archiving, or removal?
• Are there regularly scheduled content updates? How often do they occur?
• Are there processes in place for on-the-fly updates and changes? When are these possible or acceptable?
• How are live content errors caught, tracked, and corrected?
• Who is in charge of performing, approving, and managing updates?
• What are the steps for publishing changes or edits?
• Where are source files stored for audio, graphics, video, and Flash-based elements? Who helps maintain these non-text elements?
• How is content archived or deleted? Manually, or is it an automated process within the CMS?
• If content is retired, does it need to be kept (for legal or other reasons) for any length of time? If so, where is it stored?
• What are the SEO implications of deleting or updating pages? Who manages that process?
Helpful tools
Some tools that help manage this process include:
• Content inventory: A spreadsheet to record and track all of your content, including title, author, topic, format, and more. (See Chapter 5, Audit, for examples.)
• Content maintenance checklist: A list of the criteria used to evaluate and prioritize content for maintenance.
• Content maintenance log: A CMS report or spreadsheet that provides dates for last update and next scheduled review.
Evaluating Content
Web content quality—and, ultimately, your business results and user satisfaction—benefits tremendously from ongoing “health and wellness” checkups: regularly-scheduled evaluations that provide the opportunity to add, improve, fix, or remove content. Checking in on your content consistently will help you see how content performs over time as business and user needs change. It also helps you understand how content activities change due to events like holidays or product launches.
Try to use a variety of measurement methods. When you use two or more methods, you’ll get more well-rounded results. Some common methods include:
• Qualitative assessments: Review all of your audit based on specific quality criteria. (See Chapter 5, Audit.)
• Analytics: Use technology tools to collect data. (See Chapter 6, Analysis.)
• User research and usability: Ask the users directly what they want, or observe their behavior. (See Chapter 6, Analysis.)
• External expert review: Ask content experts or industry peers to review/rate content.
• Internal expert review: Get insights from knowledgeable people inside your organization, such as sales people or customer service reps.
• Competitive comparison: Measure direct competitors’ content and your content on the same factors and compare. (See Chapter 6, Analysis.)
• Operational evaluation: Look at the costs (time, money, resources) associated with content creation and maintenance.
Any evaluation of content is somewhat subjective. Even the data gathered by analytics software needs subjective analysis. The goal of the evaluation is to reduce uncertainty. It provides your team (and your stakeholders) with enough information to make smart decisions about your content.
Common tasks
Often, evaluating content includes the following tasks:
• Define what content will be evaluated
• Define criteria by which the content will be evaluated
• Recruit reviewers (internal and external)
• Design evaluation
• Conduct evaluation
• Record results
• Analyze data
• Create report
• Communicate results
Questions to ask yourself
While designing this stage of the process, you’ll want to know:
• What measurement techniques are most appropriate for our organization?
• Who is involved in the evaluation process?
• Are there other evaluation activities going on in the organization that you need to be aware of?
• How often should evaluations happen?
• Is there a set schedule for evaluations, or are they a reaction to business triggers?
• How will we track and share our results?
• Who do we need to share the results with? Do different people need different types of information?
• How do our results impact the other aspects of the content process (i.e., govern, create, and maintain)?
Helpful tools
Some tools that help manage this process include:
• Qualitative audit spreadsheet and report: Audit findings and data. (See Chapter 5, Audit.)
• Measurement scorecard: A spreadsheet or similar tool that helps stakeholders understand the results of your measurement findings. (See “Tool Spotlight” below.)
• Measurement history: An ongoing record of your measurement results (updated after each measurement activity) that provides information about how content performs over time.
Tool spotlight: Measurement scorecard
To get a clear picture of your content’s health, you need to compile input from many sources and many different kinds of information. One effective way to do this is with a scorecarding system.
What is a scorecard?
A scorecard is a tool that brings together a variety of financial and non-financial metrics in a single, concise report. Score cards let you:
• Accommodate hundreds of metrics
• Combine financial results, analytics, user opinions, expert feedback, etc. into one report with quantifiable results
• Rank metrics by importance
• Summarize metrics results into clear performance scores that all members of your team can easily understand
How does it work?
• Define what you want to measure and why (measurement factors). Measurement factors need to be quantifiable.
• Identify metrics for each factor. Metrics can be sourced from many places, such as site analytics, expert opinions, or user testing.
• Assign a target value to each metric. What is the ideal “score” for the metric?
• Assign a weight to each metric, if desired. Sometimes, it’s necessary to emphasize some metrics when calculating the score.
• Measure content performance. Record your results in the scorecard.
• Calculate a score for each factor. Combine the scores for all of the associated metrics to get a total score for the factor.
• Calculate the total score for all factors.
Like any measurement tool, scorecards work best when used regularly. Your first scorecard is the “baseline measurement.” After that, each time you use your scorecard, you can see how the scores change and how much progress has been made.
Here’s an example of what a scorecard might look like:
Governing Content
Most of this book has been about creating initial strategies and making sure plans are in place. Once that initial strategy is complete, you can ensure your strategies and plans are actionable and always up to date with governance. Governance will help you create, maintain, and update:
• Core strategy: The long-term direction of your content. (See Chapter 7, Core.)
• Authority and ownership policies: The people empowered to make decisions about content and content strategy.
• Processes and procedures: The way work gets done (See this chapter).
• Plans and priorities: The roadmaps for near-term initiatives and projects.
• Content policies: Non-optional rules or procedures the content team has to follow (for example, legal requirements).
• Guidelines: Generally understood sets of good practices that the content team ought to follow.
Common tasks
Often, governing content includes the following tasks:
• Review evaluation results
• Schedule workshops or meetings
• Conduct workshops or meetings
• Draft (the strategy, plan, procedure, guideline)
• Review
• Approve
• Communicate
• Collect feedback
• Update
Questions to ask yourself
While designing this stage of the process, you’ll want to know:
• Who needs to participate in governance activities?
• How often should governance policies and procedures be updated?
• How are updates to style guides and legal requirements communicated?
• Which tools do you use (or wish you had) for content creation and updates?
• Are there different rules for different kinds of content (for example, a blog versus a product page)?
Helpful tools
Some tools that help manage this process include:
• Style guide: A guideline that ensures that content is consistent; used by anyone who creates, reviews, edits, or publishes content. (See “Tool Spotlight” below.)
• Content planning and prioritization matrix: A spreadsheet that helps you evaluate and prioritize content projects based on criteria drawn from your content strategy.
• Meeting participation guide: More than a meeting agenda, a document that lets participants in governance meetings know what’s expected of them, and what to expect from the meeting.
Tool spotlight: Style guide
We’ve worked on hundreds of web content projects. And how many times has there been a style guide to reference for one of these projects? About six. Of those six style guides, sadly, only one of them was of any real use.
In her indispensable guide to writing web content, Letting Go of the Words, Ginny Redish devotes an entire chapter to creating what she calls an “organic” web content style guide. Here are some highlights:
• Start small. Let your style guide grow as issues and questions arise.
• Focus on issues that keep coming up. Your web writers likely have the same questions over and over. Make a decision, record it, and move on.
• Put someone in charge. The style guide isn’t going to update itself. Make sure someone owns it and is accountable for its accuracy.
• Put it online. It’s your most accessible, flexible, most cost-efficient option. In fact, a wiki might be a perfect option for your organization. Just make sure it has an owner to oversee its evolution.
Recommended style guidelines
Here are some examples of the types of information you may want to include in your style guide or style guide requirements:
• Voice and tone guidelines. Explain how you want your brand to sound, and how you want users to feel. (See Chapter 6, Analysis.)
• Correct word usage. This will vary among organizations. We recommend choosing specific terms and staying consistent (such as “team member” versus “employee”).
• Product trademark usage. Clarify the need for special symbols and dates.
• Web writing considerations. Specifically, recommend how text links, labeling, metadata, and other repeating content elements should be documented, so that they remain consistent throughout your content.
• Organization’s choice of global style guide. Rather than copying an entire grammar and usage manual into your content style guide, simply refer to the global style guide your organization decides upon, such as the AP Stylebook or The Chicago Manual of Style.
• Web writing best practices. This information may be a quick, one-page summary of tips on writing web content.
Make sure that the people who are creating, reviewing, and approving your content are all referring to the same playbook. You don’t want to leave style open to individual interpretations.
Documenting your Processes
Whether you are creating a new process or changing an existing one, it helps to get things down on paper. That way, everyone involved can understand it and react to it. Processes are bound to change and evolve, so keeping your document(s) up to date is an ongoing task.
In The Web Content Strategist’s Bible, Richard Sheffield offers these guidelines for documenting effective content processes:
1. Determine a starting point. (Author’s note: Although we know content is a continuous lifecycle, the documentation needs a starting place. Common starting places are strategy development or a new content request.)
2. Figure out a logical place for the process to end. (Author’s note: Some might say this is when content is delivered online; we’d argue it shouldn’t end until content is archived or destroyed.)
3. Identify all players from beginning to end of the process. (Author’s note: This should include not only content stakeholders, but also information architects, designers, developers, and anyone else who may need to weigh in on any content requests.)
4. Sketch the tasks.
5. Identify interaction patterns among players and tasks.
6. Allocate timeframes for tasks. (Author’s note: These need to be REALITY-based, not impossibly ambitious.)
7. Identify notification patterns: who needs to know what at any given stage of the process.
8. Identify approval patterns.
9. Determine all the “what ifs” that may knock your process off its path.
10. Once all roles are identified, tasks are sketched, and notification and approval patterns are identified, examine your workflow to see if it can be simplified.
We provided a simple sketch of a workflow diagram in Chapter 6, Analysis (see page 81). There are literally thousands of other formats which vary widely in complexity and level of detail; ultimately, your needs and situation will shape a workflow diagram that’s all your own.
Making it Happen
Once your content processes have been identified and designed, it’s time to figure out a smart way to tell people about it and motivate them to adopt the process. There are a few things to consider, here:
Make people feel included
From the beginning, you’ve been asking people for their insights and input. Hopefully, you’ve incorporated their feedback into your process design. Therefore, they’re already somewhat invested in this thing you’re doing to make their lives easier. Be sure to keep them involved and informed as your content evolves.
Communicate the benefits
Old habits die hard. Don’t expect to send a PDF of the process design to your coworkers and have everything running smoothly the next day. People do things the way they like to do them, regardless of whether it’s the most efficient way. Introduce new workflow and governance processes by clearly communicating the benefits—not only to the organization as a whole, but to the individuals who will be responsible for making the overall effort a success.
Give it time
People will need some time to adapt to a new process, especially if you’re simultaneously teaching them how to use a new CMS. Identify your success measures. Track usage. Celebrate short-term wins. Make sure people are clearly seeing the end-product benefits: that content is more accurate, more consistent, more in line with the vision of what it should be.
Look What You’ve Done
Okay. We’re nine chapters in. Let’s review.
You’ve learned about what content strategy is and why you need it. You’ve done a deep-dive analysis of your content and the things that impact it. You’ve created a core strategy and made smart decisions about substance, structure, workflow, and governance. You’ve aligned the troops again and again.
Who’s awesome? You’re awesome. High fives.
Of course, there’s more to success than methodology. The real world awaits ...