Comprehensive Guide to Content Governance

You may think of content as focused solely on marketing material. However, content extends to all end-user documents, including manuals, help, and records used internally by organizations, such as SOPs, and pertains to all channels.

"Content is anything creative, including design or writing,” says Angela Earl, Vice President of Global Marketing at RFPIO, founder of The High Bar Media, and host of the MarTalk Podcast. “It's the look and feel, the aesthetic, and the copy. So we separate those into two types of content. But both are still content." 

"Content governance is the framework and processes you use to create, store, and maintain your content," continues Earl. Content governance guides the daily practices of content creation and publishing so that the work aligns with your company's content strategy.

Robert Rose is the Chief Strategy Officer at The Content Advisory of The Consulting & Education Group of the Content Marketing Institute. He explains content governance this way: "In the simplest sense, content governance is a designed system that regulates the creation, management, and measurement of content in the business. It helps to create a more consistent, effective, and, sometimes, efficient content operation. Ultimately, good content governance should be judged by how well it helps practitioners deliver better business outcomes."

A content governance framework assigns ownership to people within the organization to ensure that content creation and publishing does not occur at random. Well-considered output adds value to your organization, and it educates or entertains customers while reinforcing your brand. 

Guidelines also keep your organization from damaging its reputation or getting sued. "Content governance is also about any potential legal implications once you release the content," explains Lilia Stoyanov, fintech expert, CEO of Transformify, and professor at Zigurat Business School. "Published content cannot come back. Within seconds, it is already spread, especially if it is news or is controversial or a little bit scandalous. Even if later you decide to take back this content, the damage is done."

A content governance framework may be simple or elaborate, depending on the context of the organization. It should detail the processes and human interactions necessary to produce a steady pipeline of quality content. When an organization establishes a governance framework, it then embarks on enterprise content management (ECM). In ECM, organizations manage all documentation and its content lifecycle according to a predetermined process.

Organizations frequently put the cart before the horse by tacking content governance onto an existing system. For best results, you should create a structure before people start writing and designing. When revamping an approach to existing assets, you may need to maintain your current channels and processes while developing a new framework in parallel. Whether your content set is new or old, consider these guiding concepts: 

• You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Consider leveraging ready-made resources, especially if you have a new and small organization. Search the internet for tips, techniques, and planning worksheets, such as those available later in this article.
• Start small and scale as necessary. A style guide and a content calendar may be all you need to get started.
• Content governance should enable more of your team to write, so you don't have to. While you want some central oversight, the content team shouldn't do all the writing.

Development doesn't have to be complicated: Remember to stress the benefits of establishing a process for writing and reviewing content over jargon and tools as you follow these steps:

• Decide on a governance model. Remember, complex models take more time to plan and may be more complicated than you currently need. "Often, we overthink things and immediately turn to technology," Angela Earl cautions. "But you can conduct an audit literally on a scrap of paper or in a digital note." 
  • Determine what kind of content you have. Is it all written content? Is it all in one place? 
  • Map what you have and to your understanding of what the organization needs. 
  • Interview different teams. "So often in marketing, we make assumptions about what people need," says Earl. “Meet with the team to say, what could we create that would be useful for you. Or where is the best place for content for you?" 
    
    Often, teams already go to a particular place or resource for content. By leveraging what staff already uses, you face less of a change management barrier. "You don't have to teach people where to go and how to use the content." Don't forget to include your executive and sales teams, who are mobile and can benefit from grab-and-go materials.
• Establish a steering committee. Staff this committee with key content management figures in your organization. Include management representatives to champion efforts and lend the necessary resources and support to make your content governance program a success. Choose team members who offer perspective on business goals, brand and key messages, and user requirements. Be judicious if this team must approve content — there's a trade-off between properly vetted content and too many hands with a red pencil creating a patchwork of ideas.
• Define and agree on content roles. When you define and constrain roles, you ensure that someone is accountable for getting tasks done, but you also limit the extent of their input. For example, reporting a typo may be okay, but only editors should do extensive proofreading. Similarly, only lawyers should do a legal review. 
• Design processes or document existing processes. During your audit, you may find that existing processes are sufficient. If so, now is the time to document them. If they aren't or if you have no procedures, start drafting them. Include steps such as the following:
  
  Before Creating Content 
  • Understand the purpose of each content channel for your organization and the content needed for them. 
  • Document the aim of content at a high level, as well as for each asset and assignment. Communicate this information to the entire organization and provide the definitions to external content developers to help them understand the purpose of your content. 
  • From your audit map, create a content map of desired content and channels. For example, you may be rich in video, but lacking in written material. If you have several success stories, consider capturing them in case studies. Planning tools can be as simple as spreadsheets and content templates.  
  • Create style and editorial guidelines.
  • Address any regulatory obligations, such as Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and so on. If you have international customers, consider how communications and e-commerce regulations in each country affect your content.
  • Define success for each channel. From the perspective of audience needs, content can entertain, educate, or engage, sometimes all at the same time. Measure how well you've achieved business requirements for content with metrics you define for your organization, such as key performance indicators (KPI), pay per impression (PPI), retweets (RT), and shares.
• After Creating Content
  • Fact-check your content. If you are discussing your products, accuracy is vital for your company's credibility. If you are dealing with sensitive information, such as investment plans or vitamin supplement research, accuracy is critical. 
  • Check to see if the brand voice and messaging are on target. 
• Automate whatever you can. Automation encourages consistency and adherence to process. Let machines do the simple and repetitive tasks — it will free up your human resources to be thoughtful and creative.
• Ensure system security. Strong passwords and two-step verification provide easy barriers to malicious activity on your social media sites and in your CMS.
• Train, manage change, review, repeat. Introduce your new processes and tools to the team through training sessions. And when an approach or piece of software is ineffective, iterate upon it. Be open to suggestions, and continually review the efficacy of your content and of your content delivery processes.

"In many ways, people have the same misconceptions about content governance that people have about government," says Rose. "Content governance isn't a synonym for bureaucracy. Many times, teams think that adding layers of governance can slow things down or remove creativity or innovation. In fact, a good governance system does quite the opposite. It can accelerate innovation and enable creativity by providing for a commonly understood set of rules for everyone." In short, the structure propels the content and channels forward.

By providing an editing and publishing structure and the safety net of approved reviewers, content governance can reveal the expertise of people who usually don't write. Subject matter experts (SMEs) can rest assured that someone is checking their grammar and punctuation, vetting their messages, and ensuring that their writing aligns with other content from the organization. A regular content pipeline can also create a vehicle for those not generally considered to be writers.

A governance framework also establishes a structure behind the strategy by bolstering a consistent voice that stays on brand. And because the audience needs to see strong and worthwhile information, content governance keeps information from going missing or remaining hidden in forgotten share folders or departmental silos.

Although content governance offers considerable benefits to teams, it can also take effort to establish. Groups may resist what they perceive as control and meddling. Be on the lookout for these challenges:

• Writers and marketing people may have strong content creation skillsets, but they may lack the personal and project management skills needed. 
• Organizations may think of content as strictly whatever marketing puts on the web — but everything, from a podcast to a page of online help, is a vehicle of communication and, therefore, counts as content.
• Creating content is more fun than worrying about editorial policies and programming workflows.
• People have no idea what content governance is or how and where to start to implement it.

The traditional model includes a manual workflow managed by editors, who create and enforce style guides and word lists, as well as give writing presentations. Unfortunately, it has always been challenging to get non-writers and non-editors, and sometimes even writers, to follow the existing guidelines or remember training. And as the demand for content increases, some experts consider that organizations require more robust models. Pick the framework appropriate to your situation, offering more or less autonomy to content creators. 

• Active Content Governance: Active content governance leverages AI technology to create a streamlined and documented workflow that aids you in delivering timely, on-brand content. The technology takes your organization's goals and produces metrics, then ensures your output is on track. Because software drives the workflow, the process can seem more benign and less like a criticism of the author or the writing itself. 
• Decentralized Content Model: The least mature approach to content governance, the decentralized model sees every SME responsible for their content. Individuals create documents, videos, graphics, and so on, without reference to the broader context of the site or user needs. Conscientious content creators may proof written language and fact-check ideas, as well as strive for alignment with other material. Although the model potentially provides a quick way to publish content, it can result in poor or inconsistent content.
• Centralized Content Model: With a centralized content model, one content team oversees the assigning, creating, vetting, and publishing of all content for all departments. A centralized model offers the advantage of introducing content strategy, style and content guidelines, defined processes, and quality control throughout the content pipeline. However, when writers develop specific content instead of SMEs, it may take longer to write and review, adding time to the process before content goes live. 
• Hybrid Content Model: As the name suggests, a hybrid content model blends the best of centralized and decentralized models. A content team focuses on high-level aspects, such as style, voice, and workflow. Individual departments may develop some of their own content under the central content team's guidelines. Ideally, this model provides editorial and social media expertise to SMEs in other fields. A successful hybrid model requires strong governance and the support of management, as well as clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

How can you maximize the benefit of content governance in your organization? Our experts have these suggestions:

• Earl: "Have a central place for content storage. Recognize that content is more than what's on the web — it's also internal content. It may be my operational mind talking, but I think one team should own content. That way, there's consistency and oversight of maintenance. Because if everybody's in charge of it, nobody is."
• Rose: "The best way, honestly, is to care about it. Building a content governance plan isn't overly complex — but it does take someone who cares about the success of it. Thinking about governance is not the sexiest part of a creative communicator's day, so it often gets relegated to the 'things we have to do' pile. If you can find people who care about it — and will continue to care about it — your chances of success are greatly increased."
• Stoyanov: "Processes: You need clear communication of processes and to use a process management tool. If you have external contributors, a CMS is 100 percent necessary."

Earl shared an example of a content audit her company Obility conducted for a client. This audit tracks the pieces of content for each buyer stage. It notes how much content applies to each app and how much time it took readers to consume content for each stage and each app. The spreadsheet indicates such information as asset name, purpose, author, URL, language, time to consume, and publishing date.

Not everyone agrees about the value of templates. "Templates are fine, but sharing them can be a disservice to anyone who wants to build their governance plan," states Robert Rose. "Doing the work of creating your specific governance plan is part of what makes a great governance plan. A template will only hide the unique needs your organization requires."

Even so, templates can form part of your research to understand what structure and assets you might incorporate into your plan. The templates below are free and customizable.

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