Content Governance Planning for success throughout the content lifecycle

Chris Mickens, Creative Technical Director, EDUCO @chrismickens

Is your organization creating web content without a

content governance plan?

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Why content governance?

Allows you to establish detailed guidelines for creating & managing consistent, high quality content by:

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Determining priorities

Outlining editorial workflow

Assigning responsibility & ownership

Setting long & short-term content goals

Informs every stage of the content lifecycle

Planning Development Revision Distribution Management

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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

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?

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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

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/

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http://snapcreativity.com/how-to-create-an-editorial-calendar

http://www.ptsmultimedia.com/blog/blog-marketing-strategy-5-steps-to-help-increase-leads-with-blogging/

http://museyroom.com/post/15180815974/a-sample-editorial-calendar

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

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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

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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

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

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– Yogi Berra

“If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.”

DEVELOPMENT

Editorial Guide

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Voiceand Tone

Pointof View

Grammar and

Punctuation

PreferredTerms

http://www.voiceandtone.com

https://www.gov.uk/design-principles/style-guide

Style Guide

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Formattingand

Layout

Headingsand

Subheads

Linksand

Buttons

ImageUsage and

Format

http://mailchimp.com/about/style-guide/

– Syndrome, ‘The Incredibles’

“When everyone is super… no one will be”

REVISION

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

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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

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

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– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

DISTRIBUTION

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

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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

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

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– Mike Tyson

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

MANAGEMENT

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

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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

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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

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If you like…

Consistent, unified messaging

Quality content

Clear expectations

Ownership & empowerment

ROI and marketing goals

…and you hate

Content that’s all over the map

Micromanaging

Dropping the ball

Duplicating efforts

ABJECT FAILURE

Content Governance is

YOUR BUDDY!

Modules & Plugins

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

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

Thank you!

Chris Mickens, Creative Technical Director, EDUCO www.educowebdesign.com @chrismickens