Up to date from an article initially printed July 8, 2020
A number of years in the past, individuals talked about making the office extra appropriate for everybody. At present, given the altering position of the bodily workplace, the dialog has turned to the workspace.
A profitable workspace operates like a group, with constant communication, responsiveness, and suppleness. The challenges of working effectively in particular person roles and as a gaggle stay whether or not or not your content material staff works in the identical place.
This checklist of go-to instruments helps my staff’s writers and editors work effectively throughout areas and time zones.
1. Central, go-to guides and sources
Be certain that your staff members can shortly familiarize themselves together with your firm’s content material advertising and marketing technique and implementation steps so everyone works from the identical web page.
The documented guides and processes we share embrace:
- Model voice and messaging
- Firm fashion guides and basic key phrase optimization, formatting, and different particulars
- Particular person fashion guides for content material techniques
Devoted guides for every content material format guarantee everyone seems to be on the identical web page. Now we have particular fashion guides for:
- Touchdown pages – documenting methods to create a mixture of written and visible content material that converts.
- Weblog articles and visitor posts – detailing key phrase inclusion, heading tags, and content material construction.
- E mail copy and newsletters – showcasing templates primarily based on objectives comparable to pitches, content material distribution, and different promotional affords. (We use Omnisend to streamline our e mail messages and enhance open charges.)
These documented guides stay in shared useful resource folders on Google Drive to make them accessible to everybody on the content material staff.
Devoted course of and elegance guides for every format maintain #Content material staff members on the identical web page, says @Shane_Barker through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
TIP: We use the Loom app to report brief movies addressing frequent errors and fixes. These movies can reinforce the areas the place your staff must pay extra consideration to your fashion guides.
2. Detailed process briefs
We write an in depth temporary for every process to keep up transparency and decrease the necessity for revisions.
This instance of a quick crafted for a deliberate visitor submit contains three columns – particulars, description, and remarks by author (if wanted). The left column lists submit kind, title, whether or not the title has been reviewed by the chief editor, description prompt to the consumer, phrase depend, goal website, goal website pointers, and target market.
3. Challenge administration through Teamline or ClickUp
To create a content material workflow, we combine Teamline with Slack. The mission administration software lets us streamline all duties and maintain tabs on progress.
Teamline permits customers to create duties in mission channels, assign them to the “involved individual,” add due dates, and add customized labels. We use customized labels to determine the duties’ precedence – medium, essential, pressing, and so forth.
When working with freelancers, we use ClickUp to assign duties and monitor progress. ClickUp contains lots of of customizable options that assist me simplify my workflow and save time. And it retains freelance monitoring out of our inside Slack channels.
We create a separate card for every task. Then we are able to shortly transfer particular person process playing cards to lists comparable to “assigned,” “for evaluate,” “authorized,” or “printed.” That lets us maintain monitor of every task’s progress and higher decide its publication date.
It additionally lets us see which freelance assignments are on the authorized checklist so we all know which invoices must be paid.
ClickUp additionally helps us plan, monitor, and create a workflow for our content material advertising and marketing campaigns. This screenshot of the ClickUp interface reveals an inventory of duties separated by kind (points discovered, evaluate, and prepared). Assignee, due date (if assigned), stage (initiation, planning, execution), and precedence particulars additionally seem for every process.
4. An availability tracker built-in with a messaging software
Slack is a wonderful platform for staff communication. We added the Mesasix Time Tracker software to it, letting us see who has logged in, is on break, and is accessible for discussions.
With this info, we interrupt individuals in the course of one thing essential. It could actually show you how to enhance worker satisfaction and, in flip, your staff’s effectivity.
The Mesasix integration additionally might help monitor general worker time to tell payroll processing by accounting.
Add the @Mesasix Time Tracker software to @SlackHQ to trace #ContentMarketing staff availability, says @Shane_Barker through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
5. Google Docs for straightforward collaboration
We use Google Docs to collaborate and work as a staff to create content material. A number of writers and editors can work on the identical doc concurrently. We are able to additionally maintain tabs on who made which edits and when. If essential, we are able to restore older variations of the doc at any time.
Google Docs software enables you to automate a desk of contents, add feedback, and assign motion gadgets to the accountable get together to make sure easy staff collaboration.
6. Communication instruments for messaging and assembly
Clear and easy communication amongst your content material staff members helps you preserve robust, lasting relationships in your group and with freelancers.
As I discussed, we use Slack to speak. We created separate channels for main firm bulletins, particular mission pointers, and writing suggestions. This helps staff members shortly get the knowledge they need, increase questions, and get quick suggestions.
After we get the staff collectively on Zoom (you would possibly use considered one of these alternate video-conferencing instruments), we report work-related conferences for future reference and for anybody who can’t make the assembly.
Set up clear and easy communication amongst your #content material staff members, says @Shane_Barker through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
Get to work
Managing a content material staff has its challenges. However regardless of the place they work, you may scale your content material advertising and marketing success with the appropriate arsenal of instruments.
What instruments does your content material staff discover useful? What questions do you could have about selecting the best software? Please share within the feedback.
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Please notice: All instruments included in our weblog posts are prompt by authors or sources. Nobody submit can present all related instruments within the area. Be happy to incorporate further instruments within the feedback (out of your firm or ones that you’ve used).
Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising and marketing Institute
