Break the content silos

As 'content' mostly lives within the marketing department, there is a lack of an overview of all content produced and distributed by PR, corp comms, HR for talent and recruitment, and customer care. When why what where does your audience stumbles upon your message, online and offline?

Content is undeserved one of the most silo'ed elements of a brand. Good news, it is easy to fix once you know the trick. 

Content eco-system

A visual overview helps to align all your touchpoints with a consistent and integrated message. Be detailed for the distribution; divide the touchpoints into audiences and topics. 

• In the center is your 'content house': your owned channels: www's, apps, organic SEO. The central place where you (should) publish all your content. From branded stories to commercial activations and campaigns.
• Surrounded by an overview of the channels to get eyeballs and to drive traffic. From social to search, to performance, to CRM, to the e-shop, and to your offline touchpoints as TVC, DOOH, brick and mortar shops with POS and product packaging.

Benefits

There are three main benefits of having a content eco-system in place. 

First, you have an overview of all online and offline touchpoints for content. To have an integrated story or campaign, you now can verify what content assets you need for which channel and where to push it with media spend. Small side note for those perfectionists out there, no need to include all touchpoints in every piece of content or campaign. The purpose of an overview is for you to know what you have available, then to decide what you are going to use. 

Second, in line with media spending, you have an overview of all paid and unpaid channels. If you push a social campaign, in one glance you know you have to spend the media budget on SEA as well. In reality, you seldom cross the bridge between marketing campaigns on social and SEA or even CRM. This visual overview helps. 

Last but not the least, crisis communications. You never know when the sh*t hits the fan, expect the unexpected and be prepared. No need to explain it is indispensable to have one overview. A checklist with all touchpoints and channels, including audiences and topics, paid and unpaid. 

Message over execution

The content eco-system is not about using social to always drive the traffic to the website or app. It is about your story and message. How this is executed into content assets depends on the chosen touchpoints and channels. On social, you go for native social content and shop-in-channel. For SEA it is about driving traffic.

Mobile-first

If you publish mainly on social, then place the app or mobile pages in the center -- not the www desktop. Meaning, if your traffic originates from social, they are on their mobile, visiting your mobile pages or app. Hence, mobile visitors are a larger number than desktop visitors. Therefore, place the mobile-optimized content in the center and make this more important than the desktop content. 

It seems a small difference, yet the difference in mindset is huge. Social savvy content on a mobile website means sticking to the social drumbeat. Short reads, easy to scan and digest, fast-paced and pleasant on the eye with clear formatting and bold writing. Short. Simple. To the point. No fuzz.

Read more on mobile and social first

Employees

'Employees' can be a channel to include in the content eco-system. Your coworkers can act as an amazing channel to spread the passion and enthusiasm for the brand and products. The initial reason I didn't include them is to empower, motivate, and inspire them to spread your content, is more aligned with internal communications. And I am not an expert in this area. 

On the other hand, if your content is of high quality and adds value, your coworkers will spread the word by themselves. Then there is no need for a reward system -- by internal comms -- to make them do it.

Hence, including your employees in the content eco-system has all to do with the quality of your content and not the department or silo within the organization. Thanks to Paul for nudging me on this topic. 

How to make a content eco-system

A few tips and tricks on how to create your own content eco-system for the visual overview. 

• Own it. Make one person responsible for the content eco-system and to keep it up to date. 
• It is tailored. There is no such thing as a content eco-system template. Every brand, company, and its channels are different. 
• Include all departments of the organization, interview all stakeholders. An easy trick is to get the organigram of the company and you work through every silo. 
• Sketch, iterate, adjust, and test. It is a living document and subject to changes. 

  A tangible and practical example of how I use the content eco-system for publishing my book.

Note

The content eco-system presented in this blog is completely fictional and not related to any of my clients. 

Finding a publisher is damn difficult. Honestly, getting denied time over time again isn't that bad, feedback improved my writing and made the book to what it is today. Yet, what is content if it doesn't reach the audience. If the knowledge stays on my computer, nobody benefits. Hence, flipping the perspective and practicing what I preach, I decided to publish by myself, online, piece by piece. 

Week by week I publish the individual chapters and paragraphs of my book. Each has its own release, indexed by tags. Use the tags or bounce from release to release. You can bounce from release to release by using the tags, you can search for topics or you can just go with the flow and read what resonates. 

At the end of each chapter, you can download the PDF with the collection of the releases that create the chapter. Below you find the first part of the first chapter. Available in low res (1,5MB) and high res (45MB).

Content of the first chapter

Foreword and outline, Basics and fundamentals for content, It starts with a belief, 3 Key takeaways for content excellence, 4 Elements of how to think like a publisher, How to set up a newsroom, How to find great visuals, To blog or not to blog, Share content from others, 'How to keep your CFO on board for brand-building' by Les Binet, Your why and leadership, The content basics and fundamentals, Cross-silo content, Long term brand building content, Content pledge: contribute to business objectives, Content painpoints, 'Epic content marketing tips' by Joe Pulizzi, Start up to scale up, Sense of content urgency, We hate ads, Be Distinctive, 'Character Gives Respect' by G-Star RAW, 'Content to stand out' by Flinders, 'Stick to Your Brand Voice' by WodBottom, Build a brand before products, Reputation management, Brand safety and content.

Soon to be published in this chapter

Content to contribute to business objectives, Set your KPIs, Reporting Tips, Measure progress with OKR, Fill the top of the funnel, Use a brand persona for content consistency, Sonic identity and content, Podcasts and how to make your own, Social first, The audience first for the best content, Learn them something new, Content follows media spend, Create a threesome: content, media, and production, Common content mistakes, Data and content

More to come within soon, stay tuned on LinkedIn or twitter​

Content is more than marketing. Content is a combination of all (digital) communication efforts to create effective and efficient storytelling to capture the hearts and minds of the customers. Content is to show and tell who you are as a brand, why you do what you do, what excites you and makes you ticks. It's a bit like tutti frutti, pick and mix and make the best combinations. 

The Wikipedia definition of 'content marketing' has two major elements, ignored by most brands:

1. It builds trust and does not involve direct sales
2. The main focus is the need of the audience

Department agnostic

Content is department agnostic. Meaning, the customer does not differentiate between content from Marketing, Sales, Corporate Communications, Public Relations, or even Human Resources for talent recruitment and last not least Customer Care. That is why you need to include all these departments in the content strategy, planning, and production. Depending on your industry, your size, and scale, your maturity, add or drop departments accordingly.

How to make cross-silo content

Stay tuned, the articles on how to do this are soon to be released. 

• Organizational configuration with a central content team directly reporting to the CEO
• Work with an Editor in Chief and dedicated team of producers and an analyst
• Centralize planning with a strategic Editorial Board and operational Editorial Calendar
• Include the departments, or silos, as stakeholders in the Content Board
• Departments are and stay the owner of the content
• Mutual responsibility for fetching and delivering content ideation

‘Content doesn’t directly and immediately add to your sales volume, yet it should be a bigger part of your marketing strategy than you imagine.’ ‘Content shows who you are and is more than just your attention-grabbing and sexy posts on social’.

If you want your audience to consume your content, you have to think like a publisher. Step away from the old school campaigns in which the TVC is the hero. Start publishing your digital magazine with continuous content in line with the help, hub and hero model to spice it up.

Align content with webcare

Within most brands and corporates the webcare is too much stand alone. Marketing creates a campaign, informing the webcare department is the very last step in the process. Instead of the first step to involve them in the concept phase. As webcare is the reflection of the customer experience, it should be an integrated part of the business. The webcare and customer care agents are the first lines of contact with your customers. They know what is going on. Not always backed up with stats and data in top 10 lists of FAQ’s, always founded on their gut feeling and intuition.

Quite a simple hack is to have the C-suite work along with the webcare team for a few hours. That input is golden. It closes the gap between the strategic philosophy and the hands-on realization and experience by the customer. Practice what you preach. If you preach you are customer-centric, bring it into practice by incorporating your customer care department in every campaign you make.

Read more on webcare integration in Case: Webcare for Content, Case: KLM Webcare and Content and Case: Nuud on Customer Care.

Don’t over-engineer content

Just try it. Start small. And be pragmatic. Make mistakes. And learn from them. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always have gotten.