5 Steps To Build a Content Operations Workflow

For easy content material advertising operations, your crew members should have a clear workflow and the best course of to make their work manageable.

Workflow is your set of duties in sequential order to supply a content material asset. Process is how your crew executes these duties effectively and persistently. Together, they assist crew members perceive their duties, full them, and the way their work will likely be routed to the following step.

Detailing workflows and processes helps team members understand their responsibilities, how to complete them, and what happens next, says @joderama via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

This streamlined, five-step strategy might help you map the workflow for any content material format and construct it into an executable course of. The templates and examples can additional show you how to full every step.

Step 1: Audit your content material codecs

Create a template with these columns – content material format, main supply platform, different supply platforms, and particular circumstances that may exist as a part of your content material advertising plan. Then, fill out the template with all of the content material codecs your crew produces:

• Content format: Do you create articles? E-books? Live shows? Webinars? Visual content material? List each format your crew frequently produces.
• Primary supply platform: Where does every format get revealed or shared first?
• Additional distribution platforms: Does this content material format seem on different channels? (These solutions assist floor duties so as to add to the method for that content material format. It additionally accounts for post-publishing steps to offer a constant multiplatform expertise.
• Special circumstances and variations: Are some e-books gated for lead gen however not others? Are movies added to your newsletters solely when you will have an occasion or particular supply? Any variations that require further steps ought to be famous.

TIP: If you notice a content material format is used considerably in a number of methods, break them into separate listings on the spreadsheet. For instance, movies is perhaps listed as Video – YouTube and Video – Instagram Stories.

At this level, focus solely on the high-level duties in your workflow. No want to consider the finer particulars like who creates the content material, who must approve it, design options, and so on., simply but.

Detailing workflows and processes helps team members understand their responsibilities, how to complete them, and what happens next, says @joderama via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Here’s an instance of how a accomplished template may look:

Use this framework to begin the record of required duties, mapping as workflows and constructing them into a unified course of.

Step 2: List all duties for every format

Next, it is best to record all of the duties wanted to supply one content material format for one main platform.

You might wish to begin with the format produced most incessantly or the one most crucial to your content material objectives. Alternately, chances are you’ll choose your most advanced asset – one which includes a number of groups or many further steps to supply and distribute. You’ll see why in a minute.

Don’t fear about placing the duties so as but. Just record as they arrive to thoughts. For instance, an “editorial article” may embody this process record:

• Determine subject.
• Schedule for publication on the weblog.
• Edit submitted copy.
• Load copy and pictures to CMS.
• Format content material for format.
• Send edited copy to creator for revisions/approval.
• Request gross sales/advertising suggestions on subject.
• Send hyperlinks/belongings to contact particular person for the day by day e mail.
• Design and develop photos.
• Gather creator bio data/belongings.
• Brainstorm particular story angle.
• Interview subject material skilled(s).
• Assign creator to jot down copy.
• Proof and approve the ultimate format.

Some of those duties have a number of sub-steps. For instance, formatting the article might contain importing and resizing photos, including hyperlinks, setting class tags, and so on. But for this train, persist with broad process classes.

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Step 3: Organize duties by manufacturing stage

Next, arrange the duties into pre-production, manufacturing, and post-production phases in sequential order just like the one proven under. This step means that you can map a seamless workflow (step 4).

Note these particulars to assist arrange your duties in logical order:

• Which duties should occur earlier than others can begin?
• Which duties can occur concurrently?
• How ought to every process be famous as accomplished and prepared for the following process?

TIP: Your processes should account for requirements and necessities set on the enterprise degree or that contribute to different organizational features. For instance, chances are you’ll must align your content material concepts along with your model’s governance or set metadata particulars in line with your enterprise web optimization technique.

If you’re uncertain what these duties are, that is the time to seek out out. It makes your work more durable if it is advisable to plug in missed steps or reorganize your duties later.

Step 4: Assign roles and map how work will stream amongst them

From right here, you add a column to the chart for roles and element who’s liable for every observe. With this info, you’ll be able to create a map displaying how manufacturing efforts stream from one position to the following.

The first half is comparatively straightforward, particularly if in case you have a small, centralized content material advertising crew and clearly outlined roles. For collaborative duties, embody all roles. In this instance, I slotted in some pre-production roles as a information.

Determining roles will be extra sophisticated for bigger enterprises or these with shared content material duties throughout a number of departments. But as soon as you fit the content material advertising crew members, you’ll be able to see the place gaps exist. That will show you how to determine the best groups to strategy for collaborative help.

Assign roles to tasks listed in your #content workflow. Then, identify the gaps where collaborative assistance is needed, says @joderama via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

The chart now gives all the knowledge wanted to grasp the editorial article format workflow. However, remodeling it into a shareable graphic or map might be a useful addition. It will assist stakeholders visualize the place their position matches within the manufacturing continuum and what nonetheless must occur.

Step 5: Operationalize and iterate

At this level, you will have the duties and order of operations mapped out for a content material format. Now, implement it as a repeatable course of. Create a mechanism to trace and handle the duties as they get accomplished and guarantee everybody has what they should do their half.

You can use the detailed dashboards supplied in undertaking administration instruments like Asana or Jira to construct a refined system. You may also construct personalized trackers and checklists utilizing cloud-based work instruments like Airtable, Trello, or Monday. But essentially the most simple strategy could also be to repeat the knowledge from the templated chart into a shareable Google spreadsheet or Excel doc.

For instance, the editorial crew at CMI makes use of a multitab tracker just like the editorial calendar template under. The course of for managing scheduled content material is tracked on the primary tab, whereas brainstormed concepts and pre-production duties get their very own tabs. Each discipline is particular to the duties required for these components of the method.

Earlier, I discussed you might create a course of round one content material format, then adapt it for different variations. Here’s how that works:

• Revisit the unique desk that notes particular circumstances and variations that require further steps.
• Walk by way of the chart denoting the duties. Identify which duties are pointless and ought to be deleted and what duties ought to be added.
• Add the roles to the newly added duties. Using what you simply did for editorial articles as a mannequin, you may as well construct processes for different content material varieties.

You can see why you need devoted processes for content material codecs with utterly totally different variations. You can also see why you may wish to begin along with your most advanced format. If you give attention to a less complicated format like livestream movies for Instagram, it would take a lot extra work to map out the manufacturing duties for extra intensive efforts like e-books.

Build, revise, repeat

Content advertising groups juggle a lot of duties. Why not make it simpler by mapping your workflows and constructing dependable processes to attain your advertising objectives? If you resolve to do that shortcut, drop a observe within the feedback to let me know the way it labored – or what you modified to make it work higher on your crew.

Cover picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute