Sugar. Spice. And everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create a successful content strategy, right?
Wrong, we’re missing our Chemical X.
Ok. Sorry for the Powerpuff Girls reference. What we’re trying to say is there’s more than meets the eye when developing your content strategy. The secret ingredient often lies in the hands of a dynamic, well-structured content operations team.
This article isn’t just about the nuts and bolts of building such a team; it’s a journey into orchestrating a powerhouse of creativity and efficiency. Here, we’ll unlock the blueprint for assembling a content operations team that doesn’t just function — it thrives, driving remarkable results and elevating your organization’s performance to new heights.
Essential Roles in a Content Operations Team
Just as a football team consists of specialists in each position, your content operations team is built on professionals who become experts in their positions. Here are some of the typical roles you’ll find on a successful content operations team.
Content strategist
At the quarterback position of your content operations team is your content strategist, a visionary who runs your content offense, shaping your overall strategy accordingly. This role involves:
- Defining target audiences
- Creating content plans
- Aligning content initiatives with business goals
The content strategist sets the tone for the team’s activities and ensures that every piece of content serves a purpose within the larger marketing strategy.
Content creators and editors
The heart and soul of content operations, content creators, and editors bring ideas to life. By crafting compelling narratives, producing engaging visuals, and refining the content to meet high-quality standards, creators and editors establish standards for high-quality content. Collaborating between creators and editors is pivotal in maintaining consistency and delivering content that resonates with the audience.
Data analysts and SEO experts
Data analysts and SEO experts generate insights into how your content is performing, particularly when it comes to how it’s landing for users. They also keep up-to-date with the latest trends regarding keywords and audience preferences. By incorporating the information they provide in your strategy, you can set up performance benchmarks and develop tools to achieve them.
Project managers
Ensuring the seamless execution of content plans falls into the capable hands of project managers. Their responsibilities include:
- Timeline management
- Resource allocation
- Coordination among team members
A skilled project manager keeps the content operations engine running smoothly, meeting deadlines and maintaining quality standards. For instance, a project manager may interface with those in your target audience before, during, and after your team has created content. After gathering feedback, they can pass this on to the rest of the team so they can use it to shape upcoming content.
Fostering Effective Team Dynamics
By encouraging productive team dynamics, you make it easier for your members to connect and tackle challenges together. It may help to use the following when strategizing ways to foster winning team dynamics.
Communication and collaboration tools
Effective communication is the cornerstone of a successful content operations team. To improve communication, content operations teams often use:
- Project management platforms
- Messaging apps
- Content creation software
These operations tools enhance real-time communication and facilitate efficient workflows. In addition to supporting collaboration, these tools also promote transparency and accountability.
Regular team meetings and strategy sessions
Consistent alignment and brainstorming sessions are essential for maintaining a cohesive content operations team. Regular meetings provide an opportunity to:
- Discuss ongoing projects. During these meetings, team members can reach out for help or share ideas to make it easier for others to meet their deadlines and solve sticky problems.
- Adjust the direction or scope of a project. You may have to connect with the rest of your team to double-check that your content is on target, pushing your organization toward its original goals.
- Share insights. Strategy sessions allow team members to collectively explore new ideas and refine existing strategies. In this way, you can foster a culture of innovation that celebrates cutting-edge ideas.
Orchestrating Cross-Departmental Content Efforts
By weaving in the input of individuals from different departments, you add diversity to your content. You also ensure it meets the needs of a wider range of stakeholders.
Aligning departmental goals with content strategies
For a content operations team to thrive, it must align closely with other departments, especially senior marketers. Understanding the goals and objectives of each department allows the content team to tailor its strategies to support broader organizational objectives. This alignment ensures that content is a strategic asset contributing to overall business success.
To ensure effective alignment, you can:
- Gather input from departments regarding what they want their content to accomplish, including how you can use content management to organize the content they use
- Periodically check in to see whether the content is supporting departmental goals as intended
- Collect feedback and input about how to adjust content or your overarching strategy to make sure it continues to align with what each department wants to accomplish
Implementing company-wide content policies
Consistency is key in the world of content. Implementing company-wide content policies ensures uniformity in messaging, branding, and quality standards across all departments. These policies serve as guidelines for content creation and dissemination, reinforcing the organization’s identity and building a cohesive brand image.
For example, you may establish a content policy so all content has to be reviewed by a subject matter expert (SME) before final editing. By getting expert eyes on your content, you reduce the chances of errors degrading its quality.
Challenges and Solutions in Content Operations Management
Building a high-performing content operations team isn’t without its challenges. Here are some roadblocks you can expect to face and ways to circumvent them.
Balancing creativity and consistency
One of the inherent challenges in content operations is striking the right balance between creativity and consistency. While diverse creative inputs can inject freshness into content, maintaining a unified brand voice is crucial.
Content leaders must establish clear guidelines and style standards, encouraging creativity within defined parameters. Regular feedback loops and collaborative workshops can help. These often foster an environment where team members creatively contribute to the content strategy’s end goal. At the same time, when everyone’s on the same page, you can make sure your content adheres to the brand’s identity.
Measuring and enhancing team performance
Measuring the performance of a content operations team requires a combination of quantitative metrics and qualitative assessments. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and content reach provide valuable insights.
Additionally, implementing feedback mechanisms like peer reviews and audience feedback allows the team to improve continuously. Before measuring team performance, it’s essential to establish a culture of improvement, where people are praised for improvement instead of simply maintaining their current level of mastery.
A Content Operations Success Story
Examining real-world examples provides a practical understanding of how successful company content operations teams overcome challenges and achieve remarkable outcomes.
Internally, at ClearVoice, we use a hybrid model of in-house employees and contractors for our content production. While we have freelance and contract writers, editors, videographers, and designers, our in-house team can fully focus on the strategy and tasks at hand without being pulled into the weeds of content creation. Not to mention the added benefits of best utilizing our marketing budget.
Protip: Check out our step-by-step guide to outsourcing your marketing content creation.
IBM’s content operations prioritizes diverse, professional voices
IBM transformed its content operations by establishing a cross-functional team and multidisciplinary strategy that included content strategists, data analysts, and creative professionals.
Instead of merely using internal employees, IBM diversified its content operations approach using IBM Think. With the IBM Think conference, IBM not only gets interesting presenters, but the tech giant also gets the content they produce. The company can then recycle that content as they see fit. For example, they can publish articles based on the presenters’ findings via the IBM Community.
By uniting a wider variety of stakeholders, IBM adds diversity to the voices that drive its content operations, appealing to more customers simultaneously.
Start Assembling Your Content Operations Team Today
As technology advances and consumer behaviors evolve, the importance of a well-structured and dynamic content operations team becomes increasingly evident. Embrace these strategies, learn from successful examples, and position your organization for success in the competitive landscape of digital content creation.
You don’t have to rely on in-house talent to form your content operations team. With ClearVoice’s content experts, you can augment your current team or outsource your entire content machine to our professionals. Connect with a content specialist today to learn more.
