Digital content – from blog posts to re-worked memes and longer-form videos – is in huge demand these days in content production. This push is part of a larger strategy to reach customers and promote products and services. But that puts those on the creative end under pressure to create quality content more quickly.
This can be a risky move because speed and quality aren’t always compatible with each other. Luckily, with the right tools and resources, there is a way to bridge the gap that usually exists between quality and quantity.
Scalability is consistently a problem for businesses, even with access to new tools that support growth. That’s because there’s a gap between technical growth and human capacity, and human capacity is what drives content production.
How, then, can businesses tackle this challenge?
The first step is to develop a content strategy that helps you and your team understand your current reach and how much work needs to be done in order to expand that reach.
Additionally, it’s helpful to be strategic about what new content your business adds by planning content clusters, outlining a clear content development process, and – critically – ensuring you have enough staff to develop that new content.
When attempting to significantly scale up your company’s content library, keep everyone in constant communication in order to avoid duplicating tasks and to ensure messaging remains consistent. This is one of the strengths of today’s content management platforms: they support collaborative workflows and communication so that creators can streamline the development process.
Supporting collaboration between content creators also provides a sense of community among team members. This is more important than ever because more content production is happening remotely. Creating a community of developers allows the team to learn each other’s strengths and internally delegate tasks and brainstorm based on those understandings, rather than relying exclusively on a project manager to keep things moving smoothly. Knowing each other makes a big difference in how people work together and the quality of the work they produce.
In today’s highly visual, multimedia environment, a comprehensive content strategy is incomplete without the inclusion of non-written content, particularly video. Even more than written content, however, video requires much greater collaboration to execute successfully.
There are visuals -- film and stills, audio, and documents containing scripts -- that need to be integrated into the final product, and different team members contribute to the process. Those distinct parts demand a strong content management system. The same goes for the development of infographics, podcasts, and even presentations.
All of these types of materials are referred to in the industry as unstructured data. Today, as much as 90% of all business content falls under the heading of unstructured data. It’s what clients view on business websites, in advertisements, and on blogs. This is powerful because of the ways it combines promotion with added value. It comes as no surprise, then, that businesses produce so much of it, or that they lean so hard on the platforms that let them organize it.
Businesses used to rely more heavily on onsite data management, rather than cloud platforms. One of the biggest challenges they faced with this was data loss and inconsistency. That’s because, while they had shared access to documents, those documents weren't updated in real time. Instead, they relied on continuous reconciliation. As such, there would often be multiple iterations of documents in rotation or team members would make updates to the wrong document. It was a constant problem, and a barrier to quality content production.
Today’s cloud-based content management tools successfully resolve the problem of multiple, conflicting files, allowing team members to feel confident that they’re working with the right information. This is a particular advantage with the rise of remote work because, even if team members could easily access in-house server setups using a virtual desktop or other program, reconciliation is that much more challenging when not working with teammates in person.
One of the hardest things about ramping up your business’s content production is determining whether or not that increase is having the intended effects. After all, objective quality – content that’s free of errors and, at least on its face, compelling – doesn’t always deliver results. That’s why every business’s content marketing strategy must include an analytics element.
There are a variety of ways to implement an analytics strategy for your business’s needs.
First, there are analytics tools that can be built into your content management software. These programs help consolidate all relevant information in one place. Additionally, it also makes it easier for team members to parse the effectiveness of specific pieces of content, as well as see the big picture. There are also a wide variety of separate social media analytics tools that can help track post performance and even monitor competitor content.
Circling back to the beginning. Analytics support your original content strategy by helping you select high-performing content. This will aid in repurposing and retargeting pieces that aren’t hitting their mark. This is what makes content management such a powerful process at its core: it addresses every step of the process. And, when teams look at the big picture, they’re able to shore up the weak points. This will help drive greater overall production, and encourage working together to meet goals.
Creating huge amounts of content may seem like a last ditch strategy; or a flood the streets approach to reaching your target. However, since content overruns today’s online world, it’s actually a necessary approach. Your content needs to cut through the noise, but luckily, you have the tools to do it.
