If you’ve ever seen the Disney movie The Lion King, then you’re familiar with the scene where the three hyena characters, up to no good, react to hearing the name of Simba’s regal, powerful father, Mufasa:
Wide-eyed terror. 😱
That’s a little how marketers react when I mention content governance.
(*shudder*)
While content marketing technologies, such as content hubs and DAMs, solve many issues –
…asset storage,
…effective search, and
…efficient workflow
– they’re far from “set-it-and-forget-it” solutions.
Careful configuration goes a long way toward determining how the technology solution will behave, but it does almost nothing to determine how the humans using the technology will behave.
That’s why you need a content governance strategy.
Although your content hubs can organize, store, and help direct the flow of your content, the human part of content creation and management still needs to be handled!
As marketing content becomes more complex – touching various systems, translated into multiple languages, published across all kinds of channels – managing and maintaining it does, too.
Let me give you a brief content governance definition:
What is content governance?
Content governance is an agreed-upon set of rules, policies, and procedures directing how data is stored, managed, accessed, archived, and distributed. It’s the how, when, why and by whom content is created and published.
With content governance, the data is content: text, visual assets, audio, video, metadata, and so on. However, workflow and approval processes, as well as brand continuity, are also part of the equation.
Now you know why people freak out when I mention content governance.
It all sounds complicated, doesn’t it?
Here’s the thing:
“We’ll just handle it internally” no longer works for departments and business units as content production becomes less siloed and more reliant on shared resources.
In fact, it will stifle efficiency and growth.
Enterprise content governance represents organizational change, which is one of the reasons many companies resist creating policies and procedures to guide their content creation, approval, and publication workflows.
But, guess what:
This change will ENABLE more efficiency and growth for your business.
Why is content governance important for growth?
The way I see it, without content governance, you have (at least) three potential problems:
-
Content strategy falls victim to ad hoc requests
-
Content completely disappears into the ether
-
Content gets duplicated, and brand continuity suffers as a result
Let’s tackle that first one: ad hoc requests.
Without a clearly defined workflow, and designated ownership or roles to go with it, it’s easy for people to pull your content creators into an unending vortex of side projects, throwing them off course and your editorial calendar into chaos.
Content governance provides an excuse: “Oh, that’s a great idea! Did you submit a request?” or “Let me email Debbie in Marketing for you. She prioritizes my work for me. I’ll copy you on the request.”
Your content governance solution also accounts for approval processes, which keeps Legal and Compliance happy, at the very least, and your content humming smoothly along its path to publication.
Workflows and approvals aren’t the only victims to poorly defined (or, dare I say it, non-existent?) content governance.
Problem number two -
All your hard work of creating content can start to disappear without proper organization. Search capabilities in your storage solution – your content hub – can quickly deteriorate, which wastes time, effort, and money. (If you can’t find content, you can’t use it.)
An important part of a content governance model is determining where and how content and its metadata are defined, stored, and accessed. Without clear planning, it’s easy to lose content, even if you aren’t a big, multi-brand, multi-lingual retailer with several, integrated systems.
And a loss of content leads to the last problem: a loss of brand continuity.
When your content creators can’t find an asset or overlay or…whatever they’re looking for…they often duplicate it (usually based on memory!).
This often results in losing the richness of the original content – as well as diminishing SEO – not to mention its alignment with the most up-to-date brand standards.
Leaving search terms (taxonomy and metadata) definition solely up to your IT department is not only unwise, it’s unrealistic. Just as Marketing doesn’t know all the ins and outs of how IT departments work, your IT department doesn’t know how users interact with all of the myriad content types and attributes and assets they create.
While IT might create a perfectly logical (to them) taxonomy, it might not meet the needs of your marketing team, and you’ll be right back where you started, with asset duplication and potential brand dilution.
OK, I lied. There’s one more issue, related to duplication:
That spiffy new content hub you’ve taken the time to install and integrate – you know, the one you thought was going to solve all your asset management and content production problems – gets bogged down with duplicated files, just like your last solution.
Big waste of money, time, and effort.
So, I’m introducing you to -
Your New Best Friend: A Content Governance Board
Remember how I said above that content governance is an agreed-upon set of rules, policies, and procedures?
The Content Governance Board collaborates to determine roles, responsibilities, and onboarding for those involved in any part of the content creation, management, and publication process.
While you don’t want your Content Governance Board to get too big, you do want to recruit and retain people who interact with the content at key points in its journey from creation to publication.
The most effective Content Governance Boards comprise members across departments, brands, business units, IT, functional roles, and levels of responsibility.
The job roles might include
-
marketing managers,
-
content creators,
-
legal and compliance officers,
-
brand managers, and
-
marketing systems admins from IT.
Obtaining buy-in and guidance from the people who interact with your content and your brand (or brands) is critical to the success of your content governance process and plan.
Here’s the quick and simple content governance framework for creating one within your organization, based on our experience across industries with B2C to B2B clients:
1. Recruit Your Worst Offenders
These are the folks who buck the system – the quiet rebels who find ways to avoid accountability.
Sometimes, they’re members of leadership teams who always seem to find ways to move their projects to the top of the priority list.
Sometimes they’re that frustrated marketer who’s been told to “just get it done” and has created workarounds in the system to bypass bottlenecks.
Whoever they are, they’ve found the weaknesses in your workflow, and they know how to exploit them – which means they have something to teach you about getting things done more quickly and efficiently.
Detain these people. I mean…recruit them, of course.
2. Recruit Your Loudest Complainers
While your worst offenders often fly below the radar, engaging in quiet subversion, your loudest complainers are the boat-rockers.
These are the people who have itemized, alphabetized lists of what they think is wrong with the system (and why).
Giving these complainers a chance to be heard – as well as responsibility for helping solve the issues they complain about – can be a powerful of uncovering pain points you didn’t know about.
More so, for converting complainers into advocates of a new way of doing things.
Complainers who have a stake in the end product often work hard to troubleshoot the issues in content governance.
And, if they aren’t willing to lend a hand to make the system better, you can always vote them off Governance Island.
3. Appoint a “Devil’s Advocate”
We’ve seen content governance boards that got along so well that they were ineffective.
A little managed conflict is good for creativity, so appointing a “devil’s advocate” to help you avoid “group think” is important to your success.
Unsurprisingly, compliance officers make good devil’s advocates. Just make sure they don’t get carried away and grind all productivity to a halt.
4. Lay Ground Rules for Participating Members
Content governance boards, like any other effective committee, need rules of conduct if they’re to operate effectively.
Don’t assume you all understand each other or that you’re all adults who can handle conflict as it arises.
When things get tense, having an agreed-upon set of rules to fall back on can refocus everyone and take the pressure (and blame) off anyone attempting to settle disputes.
Simple considerations like the following can save you a lot of trouble, especially when interdepartmental tensions arise:
-
Attendance and contribution policies
-
Roles and responsibilities for each member (which might rotate on a schedule)
-
Conflict management
-
Facilitation cues (e.g. what to do when someone is dominating or how to draw a shy person into the conversation)
The best content governance solution crosses departments and include representatives from every content touchpoint from its inception to its publication – and beyond.
Therefore, it’s important that discussions focus on solving problems and optimizing processes, not on pointing fingers.
5. Focus on Successes
The most important thing your content governance board can do is to build on what you already do well.
Creating effective content governance is a collaborative process.
Sharing your own successes (as well as celebrating others) means you’re exposing opportunities for creative problem-solving that empower people to make the changes that will allow everyone to do better.
In Conclusion
What is content governance and its role in your organization?
If you are looking to ensure the content you’re creating and publishing is consistent, high-quality, goal-oriented, and compliant – then it’s time to make a change!
This change isn’t easy but facilitates growth and efficiency.
Because it often requires not only interdepartmental cooperation but also organizational change, content governance will be a challenge.
Just remember that new road construction is always bumpy. There are traffic jams and irate drivers and lots of digging to do.
But if it’s carefully planned and communicated, with the end in mind, the effort of building that road is almost always worth the initial bumps. The same is true of getting your content governance board up and running effectively with these tips:
-
Recruit your worst offenders
-
Recuit your loudest complainers
-
Appoint a devil’s advocate
-
Lay ground rules for participating members
-
Focus on successes
Your content governance board will help you get better control over your content and use your content hub software more optimally, saving you a lot of time and money in the long term.
Let’s see how your enterprise organization can benefit the most by optimizing your content governance process. Contact us today so we can chat about it.
NIKET ASHESH
Partner
