Content governance allows organizations to determine priorities, assign responsibility, and establish detailed guidelines for creating and managing consistent, high quality web content. Sure, it’s not the sexiest thing in the world, but a well thought out content governance plan provides a solid foundation for achieving short and long-term content goals while maintaining a smooth editorial workflow. This presentation will examine how a content governance plan provides guidance at every stage of the content life cycle including: Planning Development Revision Distribution Management and Archiving We’ll wrap up with a look at some useful Drupal modules and WordPress plugins that help streamline the content management workflow.

1. Content Governance
Planning for success throughout
the content lifecycle
Chris Mickens, Creative Technical Director, EDUCO
@chrismickens

2. Is your organization creating
web content without a
content governance plan?
#contentjam @chrismickens

4. Why content governance?
Allows you to establish detailed guidelines for creating
& managing consistent, high quality content by:
#contentjam @chrismickens
Determining priorities
Outlining editorial workflow
Assigning responsibility & ownership
Setting long & short-term content goals

5. Informs every stage of the
content lifecycle
Planning Development Revision Distribution Management
#contentjam @chrismickens

6. PLANNING
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and
I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
– Abraham Lincoln

7. Priorities
• How does content contribute to your overall
marketing plan?
• Who is your audience, and what are their personas?
• Who are your peers and competitors, and how are
they performing in the digital space?
• What types of content are you creating and are some
more important than others?
#contentjam @chrismickens

8. Personas & Content Strategy
Persona Topic SM Channel Digital Publications
Marketing Mary web design best
practices
LinkedIn, Twitter
Mashable, Ad Age,
Forbes, marketing blogs
Account Director
Ashley
digital marketing
strategy
LinkedIn, Twitter
Ad Age, Mashable,
marketing blogs
C-Suite Charlie marketing industry
trends
LinkedIn
Ad Age, Forbes, Wall
Street Journal,
marketing blogs
Eddie
Entrepreneur
tech & design
trends
Twitter, LinkedIn,
FB, Quora
TechCrunch, Mashable,
creative blogs
Designer/
Developer Diana
tech & design
trends
Twitter, LinkedIn,
FB, Quora
TechCrunch, Mashable,
creative blogs

9. Editorial Calendar
• Your weekly or monthly schedule of when content will be
published
• Gives you an actionable plan to back up your content
strategy with an opportunity to break up content creation
into manageable scheduled tasks
• Allows you to plan for content-generating events
• Editorial Calendar roundup post from Crazy Egg:
http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/10/18/content-strategy-editorial-
calendar/
#contentjam @chrismickens

10. http://snapcreativity.com/how-to-create-an-editorial-calendar

11. http://www.ptsmultimedia.com/blog/blog-marketing-strategy-
5-steps-to-help-increase-leads-with-blogging/

12. http://museyroom.com/post/15180815974/a-sample-editorial-calendar

13. Resource Management
• Prioritize important content and focus on
operating within organizational constraints
• Create guidelines for outsourcing content
development
• Establish protocol for requesting graphic design,
photography, and image acquisition
#contentjam @chrismickens

14. Taxonomy
Taxonomy is a system for organizing content
Categories Tags
News Events Tutorials Reviews CSS Tricks Drupal Business Tips
The taxonomy decisions you make can affect the structure
of your website and should focus on helping visitors find
content that interests them
#contentjam @chrismickens

15. Categories & Tags
Taxonomy can take any form, but the most popular CMS defaults
use Categories and Tags, so it’s important to know how they differ
Categories Tags
Think: book chapters Think: book index
Broad groupings of general topics Specific, micro-categorization
Could be structurally integrated into
your site, so additions or modifications
will involve some review process
Free-flowing and easy to add, but don’t
forget that a one-item tag is frustrating and
useless to visitors
Put a lot of thought into these in the
up-front because they’re fairly static
Should be audited on a regular basis to
improve clarity and eliminate overlap

16. Miller’s Law & Chunking
• Miller’s Law: the number of objects an average
human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2
• Chunking is used by the brain’s short-term
memory as a method for keeping groups of
information accessible for easy recall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
#contentjam @chrismickens

17. DEVELOPMENT
“If you don't know where you are going,
you'll end up someplace else.”
– Yogi Berra

18. Editorial Guide
#contentjam @chrismickens
Voice
and Tone
Point
of View
Grammar
and
Punctuation
Preferred
Terms

19. http://www.voiceandtone.com

20. https://www.gov.uk/design-principles/style-guide

21. Style Guide
#contentjam @chrismickens
Formatting
and
Layout
Headings
and
Subheads
Links
and
Buttons
Image
Usage and
Format

22. http://mailchimp.com/about/style-guide/

23. REVISION
“When everyone is super… no one will be”
– Syndrome, ‘The Incredibles’

24. Roles & Responsibilities
• Provide clear and defined boundaries with checks and
balances
• Identify knowledge gaps
• Allow team members to take ownership of stages in the
content development process
• Align knowledge, capabilities, and responsibilities to
the role and not the individual to allow for team
changes and growth
#contentjam @chrismickens

25. Editorial Workflow
This workflow will be unique, and planning for it will allow you
to acquire CMS tools to support your needs

26. Education & Training
• Create a repository for training and how-to
materials
• Determine training prerequisites for certain roles
and permissions
• Establish on-going education and certification
recommendations and requirements
#contentjam @chrismickens

27. DISTRIBUTION
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

28. Publishing & Sharing
• Determine Timing, Channel, and Frequency
• Burrito Principle: catch people during down time
stayclassy.org/blog/the-best-times-to-post-to-social-media-introducing-
the-burrito-principle/
• Post Smarter Right Meow: target peak times by channel
blog.sumall.com/journal/timing-everything-post-smarter-meow.
html
#contentjam @chrismickens

29. Activity Date Message
Publish ‘How to Make a
Sitemap'
Tu 9/30
LinkedIn Post Tu 9/30
Trying to figure out your website content? Creating a
sitemap will help guide your process. Learn how to make
your sitemap in under an hour >>
Tweet Tu 9/30 Working on your website? We’ve got some new sitemap
design tips, just published this week >>
LinkedIn Post Th 10/2 Working on your website? Creating your sitemap doesn’t
need to be a chore. Here’s our step-by-step guide >>
Tweet Th 10/2 Here’s our guide to sitemap design, new this week >>
Facebook Post Th 10/2
If you’re working on a website, try making the sitemap
first. It’s easier than it sounds, and your first draft takes
about an hour. To help, we created a step-by-step guide
to sitemap design.
Tweet F 10/3 If you liked this week’s sitemap design tips, check out 6
Steps for Planning Your Website Content from @cate
Tweet F 10/3 Shout out to Cate Conroy (@cate)
Tweet W 10/6 In case you missed it last week, here’s our new step-by-step
guide to sitemap design

30. Performance Benchmarks
• Social Media: # of shares per channel; clicks per
follower; engagement rate (FB)
• Emails: # of opens; % of click-throughs
• eBooks & White papers: # of downloads
Pay attention to how shares, likes, and comments convert
to page views from new and returning visitors and
measure performance internally and against competitors
#contentjam @chrismickens

31. MANAGEMENT
“Everybody has a plan until they get
punched in the face.”
– Mike Tyson

32. Responding to Issues
• Inquiries, feedback, and criticism
Establish priorities, tone, and standard responses
• Inflammatory or abusive comments
Outline # of strikes banning policy; Avoid feeding
the trolls
• Controversial/offensive content
Develop response protocol such as 3 A’s:
Acknowledge, Apologize, Act
#contentjam @chrismickens

33. Content Audit
• What content types will be audited and how
often?
• What criteria will be used to judge content
strengths and weaknesses?
• Annie Cushing’s (exhaustive) Audit Checklist:
bit.ly/audit-checklist
#contentjam @chrismickens

34. Republishing Content
• Rewrite, refresh, republish, or just promote again?
• Evergreen content is quality, useful content that
is relevant to readers for a long period of time
http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-complete-list-of-evergreen-content-ideas-for-your-blog
• Plan for annual or seasonal content
#contentjam @chrismickens

35. If you like…
Consistent, unified messaging
Quality content
Clear expectations
Ownership & empowerment
ROI and marketing goals

36. …and you hate
Content that’s all over the map
Micromanaging
Dropping the ball
Duplicating efforts
ABJECT FAILURE

37. Content
Governance is
YOUR
BUDDY!

38. Modules & Plugins

39. Drupal (D7) Modules
• drupal.org/project/scheduler: Allow nodes to be published and
unpublished on specified dates
• drupal.org/project/workbench: Provide simplified content
editing interface; access and editorial workflow control
• drupal.org/project/revisioning: Configure workflows to create,
moderate and publish content revisions
• drupal.org/project/workflow: Create workflows to create,
moderate and publish content based on permissions
• drupal.org/project/maestro: Pretty intense workflow engine
with visual workflow editor

40. WordPress Plugins
• wordpress.org/plugins/oasis-workflow: (Free/Pro Version)
Automate workflow processes with visual workflow
designer; role-based routing; process history; reminders
• wordpress.org/plugins/content-progress: Manage
workflow marking content as complete, partial, or
needing review; add notes
• wordpress.org/plugins/edit-flow: Engage in editorial
collaboration with calendars, statuses, comments,
notifications, user groups, and content budgets

41. Thank you!
Chris Mickens, Creative Technical Director, EDUCO
www.educowebdesign.com
@chrismickens