Collaboration is a team sport. Every person involved has to participate for it to work. In content collaboration, there are often many challenges, but just like sports, should the practice have rules? Would content collaboration rules empower or hinder your team?
Is Content Collaboration Possible Without Rules?
When collaboration is part of your content planning and production, it can forever alter the way you produce content. With so many roles, functions, and duties, content collaboration is likely to hit some walls or bottlenecks.
The entire process of content creation includes so many facets: content strategy, ideation, writing, editing, SEO, design, and publication, just to name a few.
It’s a lot of things to juggle, and the bigger the team, the more challenges you are likely to face. Every cog in the process needs to include consistent communication to keep projects from stalling. Often this leads to activities that aren’t productive or effective: too many meetings and a trail of emails.
In a perfect world, content collaboration would be instant and constant. Closing communication gaps can energize any team. And the more consistent these smooth collaborations are, the better teams work together, even if they are operating across dysfunctional silos.
So, to uphold the edicts of instant and constant, don’t you need content collaboration rules? Is it even possible to have a culture of collaboration without them? Or would rules stifle the process and create more challenges?
Do No Rules Equal Chaos?
Collaboration isn’t something that necessarily happens organically. Without guidelines, you may have a team unaware of the expectations. If you simply tell your team to collaborate but don’t offer any rules, how will they respond?
Will they magically learn how to work better together? Probably not. The key is to establish rules that enable better content collaboration while still giving individuals flexibility and the ability to be creative.
You may very well end up in a chaotic situation without any ground rules. Each person could be creating their own playbook about what they think collaboration should look like, putting your team on a course for disappointment.
Rules don’t have to be a negative. It’s about choosing the right rules and the right tools to foster better collaboration. Tools, like a content marketing software platform, enable easier communication and are an opportunity to offer transparency into workflows.
Let’s look closer at what rules and tools can encourage better content collaboration.
Why Content Collaboration Is Important for Your Brand
Before we dive into rules, it’s essential to understand why content collaboration is an effective strategy. It allows you to:
- Use resources more efficiently – content collaboration enables your team of experts to work together to take content from idea to completion. It helps fill in the gaps that might currently be prohibiting you from producing as much content as you need to attract new buyers.
- Add more creative solutions – with more collaborators, you’ll experience better ideation. More ideas lead to more creative and compelling content.
- Increase your reach and brand recognition – with more relevant content that’s being consistently produced, you’ll build greater awareness around your brand.
- Work smarter, not harder – by collaborating and using tools that make it more effective, your team can focus on being more strategic and spend less time on inefficient processes.
Establishing Content Collaboration Rules
Rules don’t have to be prisons. They are meant to keep everyone on the same page. Here are some vital rules you should consider for content collaboration.
Define Goals
Goals are instrumental in every business process. Content collaboration is no different. As part of your rules, you should define goals and they should be unified. After all, you won’t get very far in content marketing efforts without everybody aspiring for the same goals.
Without goals, your team may become sidetracked and end up stalled on how to move forward. The rules should include staying on task and having unified goals from the content planning stage and beyond. This should be for short term and long-term objectives.
Keep goals top of mind and updated through regular communication and the use of a content calendar, which can identify the objective of every content piece.
Ensure Everyone Has a Voice
To keep team members on board, your rules should designate that everyone has a say. This voice should be present at all stages from content strategy to the collaborative process of developing the content. Your team will stay engaged and believe that what they have to say matters.
Roles and Responsibilities
One of the most important aspects of content collaboration is that every person has a role. You can consider assigning rules to those roles, which may help everyone express their strengths in the best way without a lot of overstepping.
These rules would be associated with their responsibilities and assign them as an expert. For example, designers on your team could have rules for their participation that they must approve the use of branding. This defines their role and gives them accountability.
Facilitate Rules with the Right Tools
Content collaboration isn’t easy. The larger the team, the more cumbersome it becomes. So, you need to have some tools that facilitate the process.
Find a content marketing software platform that offers these key capabilities:
- Central idea hub: everyone can share ideas openly here and with more ideas comes more engaging content
- Shared content calendars: eliminate questions about timelines and due dates with a calendar that offers true transparency
- Real-time notifications: reduce the constant emails with a platform that sends automated, real-time notifications to all impacted parties
- Content asset search: make finding what your team needs easy with this feature
- Easy duplication of content: repurposing content is easy with one-click duplications
- Project management tools: manage projects centrally within your platform so that everyone can see exactly what they need to accomplish
Developing rules for content collaboration is crucial to ensuring that your team embraces working together effectively. The important thing is to establish rules that matter to your content process and to have the support tools you need to make everything easier so collaboration becomes second nature!
Have more questions about content collaboration? Learn how project management tools enhance content collaboration.