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Transcript

6/22/26 #ContentChat: Scaling Content Through Better Collaboration · #ContentChat

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Content Chat.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Erica Heald.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are continuing our journey through my book, Content Foundations, and we'll be discussing chapter six, which is collaborating with external and internal talent.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, in discussing chapter five, we explored how structured planning processes, templates, and workflows help us move from reactive content creation to intentional strategic content operations.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter six builds directly on that foundation.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you've documented your strategy and created repeatable processes, the next challenge is making sure that other people can successfully contribute to your content program so that way it's not all just on you.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're working with freelancers, agencies, internal subject matter experts, designers, developers, internal stakeholders, or AI tools, content creation is pretty rarely a solo activity.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the more that your content program grows, the more collaboration becomes a critical skill.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of the central ideas in this chapter is that successful collaboration doesn't just happen automatically.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It requires infrastructure, documentation, and clearly defined expectations.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe most importantly, it requires that you have systems in place that make it easy for people to do great work.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So they're not having to guess or even worse, having to come back to you and ask permission or ask lots of questions about things over and over again.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's kind of start by debunking a pretty persistent myth that I've seen, and that is a lot of people seem to think that the best content, truly great exceptional content, is created by an individual content creator working independently.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: You just have this unicorn, this brilliant writer person, this video savant, you have this person who just automagically creates wonderful content.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, where I like to try to live, most successful content programs involve multiple contributors.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's frequently freelancers, it can be agencies, it's gonna be those folks throughout the organization that have interesting experience and expertise that they can share.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be working with designers to make the content approachable.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: This could also include people who are video editors.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna also be working with your executives because you need their buy-in in order to be creating and distributing fantastic content.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, content also requires the import, input, and support of your marketing, sales, and customer success teams.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And increasingly, we're using AI tools as part of our content marketing and content creation processes.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the challenge that we're all looking at isn't finding more of these independent contributor unicorns, finding those super talented people to own our content creation.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's really about creating an environment where those smart people, those talented people, can consistently do their best work.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about giving them$5,000 to create a beautiful workspace with toys on it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what's going to help them create and do their best work.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've certainly been in that boat where I've seen many organizations just assume that people who are contributing to your content, people who are creating content are just going to figure things out.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But every contributor starts with a different set of assumptions based upon their background and their life experiences, their work experiences.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think about myself.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have a journalism degree and I did a significant amount of freelance work well before I started in my content marketing career.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So as a result, I have a lot of thoughts and experience with doing things in a very specific way.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: That somebody who went to school and got a marketing degree and started creating content after being within marketing organizations for a decade, that person's gonna have a very different approach to creating content than me.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense, of course it does.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're in those situations with different people with different assumptions and ways of doing things, if they're not given proper context, they're going to fill in the blanks themselves.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you start to see inconsistency in your content marketing programs.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Collaboration can only succeed when all of your contributors have a shared context and they're not expected to guess what it is that you want or that you're trying to actually get as your outcomes.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be absolutely 100% career.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why onboarding documentation is a strategic asset that you absolutely should be investing in as part of your contributor enablement.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the onboarding is one of the biggest themes running throughout this chapter and frankly throughout every presentation I give.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Most organizations think of onboarding as an HR activity.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that's happening when you start a brand new job and they are showing you how to access the timesheets and vacation requests and all of these kinds of things.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that is part of your onboarding.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you need to be doing onboarding as part of your content governance activities too.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because having that solid onboarding is the only way that you're going to be able to ensure that everyone in your organization who's creating content, distributing content, or giving input into content, that they understand what your goals are, what you're trying to achieve, and what the individual types of expectations are that you have for creating different types of content.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: This onboarding documentation is going to answer some of the most important and most common questions that your contributors will have.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does good content look like here?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody has a very different definition of that, let me assure you.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Also, it helps them understand who is our audience, what's our brand voice?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: What are the processes I have to follow to get from assignment through to being done?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Who reviews my work?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And how will I know that I am successful?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: What am I going to be measured on?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't provide those answers to those questions in a consistent manner up front, every contributor is going to be starting from a different place.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then every project that you're working on requires additional explanation.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's simply not scalable.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one of you.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: You only have so many hours in the day, and you can't be spending all of them answering questions from your content contributors that are supposed to be helping you scale your content program.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so what should you include in that onboarding?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: At a minimum, you need to have your brand and audience information.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that's going to include your brand voice and your personas that you're using, your content expectations, what are your typical blog posts?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: What are the requirements for creating an ebook?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing from videos?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like all of these different platforms that you're using, all the different types of assets that you're creating, all of the different channels through which you're sharing content, helping people understand what the expectation is, what good looks like, what's actually performed as those types of content.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Similarly, you're going to want to provide process guidance for all of those different types of content.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also going to include the tools and workflows that are used in order to deliver on all of those different processes.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I also think it's critical to include the review and approval information so that way people understand who is the final approval and how many reviews.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Does this need to go through compliance and legal, how should I know?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: All of those kinds of things.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You want to have that be put in a very concrete manner so that way people are confident that they have it right, that they know what their next steps are.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you'll want to have your style guide and SEO GEO guidance.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the goal here is not documentation for documentation's sake.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about trying to be the brand police.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your goal is confidence.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because when your people are confident that they know what's expected, they can contribute so much more effectively.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the one key takeaway here is that good onboarding documentation doesn't create bureaucracy.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It creates confidence amongst all of your contributors.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, another big concept in this chapter is the importance of maintaining an editorial and contributor guide.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these are commonplace in media companies.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know I used to have to send away for these kinds of guidelines.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: You'd send a self-addressed stamped envelope with your request back in the day.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, now all this stuff's online for media companies, what their publishing process looks like and what they're looking for from contributors.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But very few other types of organizations seem to have them.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yet any company that works with external content creators and contributors can benefit direct very directly from this documentation.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because your contributor guide is where your content strategy becomes practical.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: It translates your vision into something people can use to guide their decision making.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: A contributor guide helps answer questions like how do we communicate?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: What does our voice sound like?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: What content formats do we publish?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: What standards do we follow?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Such as AP, are we using AP?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are we using serial comma?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do we feel about M-dashes?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the thing is you should be using serial commas and m-dashes, thank you kindly.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And very critically these days, how should AI be used and disclosed?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Without this guidance, every piece of content becomes a custom coaching session.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: But with this kind of guidelines, with these guidelines in place, your contributors can work more independently while still staying aligned.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons I often say you can't scale what you haven't defined.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And these contributor guidelines, they help make your expectations visible and repeatable.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So contributor guidelines, they are what you're going to be able to use to reduce the dependency on you for being the answer and the keeper of all of the institutional IP to make creating quality content something that can scale within your organization.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I would be remiss if I didn't take some time to talk about project management tools, which is something that we talk about in this chapter, with the point being that too often people think that they can, excuse me, that they can just purchase a new project management tool.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, our life will be complete if only we're all using Notion, or if we all start using this marketing content approval tool, then everything's going to be great.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: All of our collaboration challenges will be solved.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Except that's not what happens.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because the tools can't fix those broken processes.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, the tools add a layer of complexity frequently to all of those processes.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have people thinking through what those processes should be before you can even start to think about implementing new tools.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because the best project management tools, they create visibility for the processes you already have in place.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: They help people understand what's being worked on, who owns it, what stage it's in, what's blocking progress, what or who is blocking progress, and what happens next.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if expectations aren't clear, if you don't have all these guidelines in place for people to refer to, your project management platform can't solve that problem.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're using Asana, Notion, Teams, RICE, Redbooth, or another platform, the tool is only as effective as the process that you have behind it.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So remember, project management tools only create visibility.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's your process that supports those tools that creates the alignment you need in order to scale your content.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So lastly, of course, we do talk about AI in this chapter because AI needs as much guidance as a new employee, and this chapter 100% reinforces that idea.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just think for a minute about what helps your typical content freelancer succeed, providing them with context, expectations, examples, workflows, and feedback.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about what helps AI succeed.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same list.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's exactly the same list.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your AI tools that you're using, they don't know your audience.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: They can't automagically know your brand voice based upon you pasting in a hundred words.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know what good looks like for you and what your quality standards are.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: They can't guess what your review process is.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: For all of these questions to be answered, you have to provide your AI tools with that context up front.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the organizations that are truly getting the best results from AI aren't treating it as magic.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're treating it as a collaborator that needs to be onboarded just like anyone else, any other entity in their organization that's going to be part of the collaboration for creating content.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why governments matter.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: The same documentation that helps humans succeed also helps your AI tools succeed.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I know we shouldn't be thinking about the AI tools as being humans, but they do have some things in common with us.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not providing them with that context, they're going to amplify the gaps in place and in the best case scenario, be creating very, very generic outputs that don't reflect your goals and what you're trying to con what you're trying to actually achieve with your content marketing strategy.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's one lesson that I'd like you to take away from chapter six of the book, most collaboration problems are actually clarity problems.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I know we hate the it's not this, it's that kind of a thing, but sometimes it's the best way of helping people understand and debunk those myths.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: The collaboration problems are put in place because we haven't taken the time to tell people what is expected.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: People want to do good work.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Freelancers want to succeed.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your agencies want to deliver value, employees want to contribute, AI wants to follow your instructions, but none of them can succeed without context.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why onboarding documentation, including contributor guides, workflows, project management systems, and clearly defined expectations all matter.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because you need to be creating more control.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's not why you're being an advocate for content governance.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's because content governance creates clarity, and clarity is what makes collaboration scalable across your entire organization.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So for those who want to go deeper on this topic, chapter six in the book includes freelancer and contributor onboarding guidance, editorial and contributor guide recommendations, some documentation frameworks, some project management and workflow examples, a notion-based content planning and production workflow that you can copy paste basically, collaboration best practices for agencies, freelancers, and internal teams, guidance for working with AI contributors, and some communication and expectation setting frameworks.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: The thing to remember, of course, as you take a look through all of these different tools, is you don't need to copy someone else's collaboration process, but these are all starting points for you to create a system that gives every contributor in your organization the information and support they need to succeed.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So now next week we're going to be moving into chapter seven, reviewing and polishing content.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: We'll explore how to define content quality, build repeatable review frameworks, use AI to support editing workflows, and ensure your content consistently reflects your brand voice, standards, and audience needs.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Creating content is only part of the process.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Making sure it's ready to represent your brand is just as important.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, see you next week.