WORKWEEK

I’ve been thinking about content governance a lot recently, which makes sense. 

When you get to a certain size of content library, and your company launches an insane amount of new products and features each month, let alone quarter, you find yourself needing to make consistent updates to old content simply because a product doesn’t work the way it once did. 

Add to that changes in messaging and strategic narrative, and updating, refreshing, and simply “smoothing out” (as I’ve found myself describing it) old content is a full-time job. 

But, most content teams don’t have a person dedicated to that full time job. I know I don’t. Instead, I’ve been thinking about how to systematize it. 

To start, I’ve gone to Google Sheets to organize our content. I’ve tagged all of our content based on our site’s information hierarchy, which details our products, solutions, and features. Every one of those pages now has an associated Google Sheets tab with related marketing content listed. 

This helps whenever a product or feature is updated. I can simply find the tab and work with a product marketing manager to update and tweak all assets in that tab to align with the new positioning. Great! 

Those content update requests flow into our project management system for our writers and editors to get to work on. 

But updating it is not enough. We need to know what the update was and how that shifted the piece because some assets are now more at the top of the funnel than they originally were, and vice versa. This impacts which pieces are promoted where within a nurture stream and all distribution channels, really. 

So, in that document, I’ve outlined the former state and the future state of the asset, including URL structure, target keywords, funnel stage, recommended update, and the why behind that update. I’ve also added launch dates for each piece. This way, all distribution channels from SEO and social media to lifecycle and enablement can update their assets and strategies accordingly. 

And that’s just for one product update. This is what I mean by governance can be a full-time job.

So, I have a question for everyone here: how do you handle content governance? Do you have dedicated processes and a clear line of sight into what needs updating and when? Is it a whack-a-mole situation, and you feel it always will be? 

Governance is a blessing and a curse it seems. A blessing in that you have a large content library and work for a constantly innovating company. And a curse in that, well, it’s table-stakes work that is rarely appreciated but wildly necessary. 

They have always said content marketing is like gardening—maintenance of established beds is crucial to garden health and longevity. Here’s to spending time, effort, and deep thought on not just the pruning, but on the efficiency and effectiveness in doing so.