Collaboration and the value it delivers are certainly not a trend. Rather, it’s a necessity in business. Every project requires different skills and stakeholders to complete, and planning and producing content is decisively one of the most collaborative processes. Content collaboration trends will impact how you’ll move forward with your enterprise team.
What’s trending in this ecosystem has a lot to do with the new way in which we work — dispersed, hybrid, etc. In addition, the urgency for content collaboration is greater than ever in content, as you strive to stand out from the rest with impactful, consistent content production that attracts and converts audiences.
If your content team needs to update processes and how you work together, you’ll want to know about these content collaboration trends.
Trend One: Where You Work No Longer Matters
The pandemic accelerated the transition to remote work. Now two years later, some are returning to the office, while many organizations are adopting hybrid work models. That puts literal space between collaborators. Yet, most businesses adapted to this well.
Since the shift, many organizations have conducted studies to measure the impact of the pandemic on work. In the Owl Labs State of Remote Work 2021, 90 percent of workers said they were more productive remotely. Further, workers appreciate autonomy, and 71 percent want a hybrid or remote working style post-pandemic.
So, what does this mean for collaboration? Many companies that are going hybrid reserve in-person time for collaboration. However, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible with a distributed team. The ability to be screen-to-screen may even be better than sitting around a conference room table.
Consider that sitting across from someone doesn’t guarantee their attention or remove distractions. Remote work doesn’t “kill” collaboration. It changes the dynamic and how we collaborate. Its stifling is typically due to poor management and lack of technology.
Improving collaboration in the age of remote or hybrid work depends on several things:
- Consistent communication among all parties
- Technology that supports workflows to keep all collaborators on point and enables transparency (i.e., a content calendar that defines all projects, tasks, and collaborators)
- Regular check-ins between collaborators when they get to a place where they need to work together to hammer out details (i.e. sessions for edits, review, or brainstorming new topics)
Ultimately, to collaborate effectively within your content team and others, you’ll need to adapt workflows, adopt the right technology, and stay connected.
Trend Two: Connecting with SMEs Is a Challenge, So Have a Strategy
In many of your content projects, you may require the input of an SME (subject matter expert). That could be internal like a product manager or external like an industry thought leader. Collaborating with these external stakeholders is tricky. In fact, in the CMI (Content Marketing Institute) 2022 B2B Content Marketing Report, 42 percent of respondents said this was the biggest challenge.
Image: CMI
So, why is it such an issue? It could be a question of them taking the time to contribute. It may also result from your internal SMEs not prioritizing the need to support content. To counter this, you should consider developing a strategy that identifies:
- The types of SMEs you’ll need for projects
- The expectations of an SME if they agree to participate
- Workflows to make the process as efficient as possible
Trend Three: Access Is Everything
Another challenge in content collaboration is access. All those that need it don’t always have it. Additionally, assets and documents may live in many different places. Trying to find what you need can affect collaboration negatively.
Here’s an example. Your content team (writer, designer, etc.) is working with a product manager on a new comparison infographic. Your creators need to tap that SME for granular features and benefits, so they need access to the product messaging matrix. The SME also needs to see the creative brief and what you’re trying to accomplish.
Sounds like it would be easy to share this, right? What if product managers have separate repositories or only have that information on their devices? And can your team distribute their documents?
Creating a central repository for all assets that’s searchable eliminates these pain points and makes collaboration accessible!
Trend Four: Strengthen Collaboration Workflows to Ensure Throughput Remains Constant
Is your content team struggling with throughput because of collaboration roadblocks? It’s a common problem that can be frustrating and keep you from meeting goals. While it’s an issue with many facets, content workflows are at the heart of it.
It might be a good time to review those that correlate with collaboration. In assessing their usefulness, you can look at the average completion time. Then compare that against your ideal timelines. In this analysis, figure out what went wrong with collaboration. Did the contributors have access issues? Was technology hindering rather than helping? Were expectations not clear from the start?
Everybody is busy, and your enterprise content team has many responsibilities. However, is it a “good” busy? In other words, are people productive? That’s the crux of figuring out if your workflows need a revision.
Administrative tasks, such as having to attend status meetings, send email reminders, or managing a bunch of process documentation, is the wrong kind of busy. If your team members spend too much time with these transactional activities, it will impact collaboration. You can best maximize this time with a content marketing platform that is built specifically for content teams. It enables better collaboration, planning, management, automation, and more out of the box!
Content Collaboration Trends: Technology Is the Key
Within all these content collaboration trends, the same themes exist. You’ll need the right technology to solve inefficiencies, improve communication, and enable transparency. If you want to solve collaboration challenges and make it part of your content team’s foundation, you’ll need a content marketing platform like Divvy. Find out why it’s an award-winning solution that enterprise content teams love by starting a free trial.