5 Tips to Optimize Your Content Management

According to the Content Management and Strategy Survey by the Content Marketing Institute, 78% of organizations approach managing content strategically. 

But managing content is not easy. Day-to-day content management must be strategically planned, i.e., aligned with business goals, to succeed. It is important to consider people, processes, and technology in addition to handling various types of content if you want to ace content management. 

This includes internal content, website content, social media content, and offline content, all of which have ownership, creation, and distribution that are frequently spread across the organization, particularly in large organizations.

To help you improve your content efficiency and allow you to focus on what’s important: creating content to meet the target audience's needs, we have come up with these 5 tips to optimize your content management plan.

1. Choosing the right tool

The importance of choosing the right set of tools for managing your content cannot be emphasized enough. 

There are a lot of things going on when it comes to content. There are multiple phases and people involved in creating and sharing even a small piece of content. And when it comes to content on a larger scale, such as websites, blogs, videos, etc., it becomes even more necessary to get things done in an organized way. 

Luckily, various content management tools are designed to meet the requirements of your content creation journey through different phases. Here are the different phases and the tools that can come in handy:

For content ideation and planning: This is where online whiteboard platforms like Miro, Visme, or Mural and team collaboration tools like Asana or SmartTask can come in handy. They offer features such as whiteboards, content calendars, kanban boards, task management, project management, and real-time communication to help plan your content strategy while keeping things clear and transparent for the team.

Source: Content Planning in Miro

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You might also need the help of SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to plan your blog content strategy.

For content creation: When it comes to creating content, there are plenty of tools that you have as options depending on the type of content you are creating.

• Content Research - Google Search, Google Trends, AnswerThePublic, ChatGPT
• Content Writing - Google Docs, MS Word, Notion
• Content Editing - Hemingway Editor, Grammarly
• Content Design - Photoshop, Canva, Figma
• Video Content - Loom, Adobe Premier Pro
• Audio Content - Audacity, Adobe Audition

Based on your requirements and level of expertise, you can pick the tool that works best for you.

For content scheduling: Next comes the phase where you start publishing and distributing your content on different social platforms and blogs. You can use Iconosquare’s content publishing feature to schedule your content on social media beforehand, ensuring you always post your content at the right time. You can also schedule your blog content in advance if you are using content management systems like WordPress.

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For content collaboration: One thing that is critical during each of the content phases is collaboration, ensuring you can work effectively with your team without missing out on important details. These days, most tools come with basic collaboration features or are easily integrated with communication & collaboration tools such as Slack, Notion, etc.

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All-in-one content management tools: Jumping across too many tools while working can get hectic and costly at the same time. It is best to go for tools that offer the most features in one place. You can use an all-in-one content management platform for your content scheduling, approval, collaboration, social listening, analytics, and much more, saving you time and money while making content management super smooth for you. 

2. Focusing on the right data

Data equals money. Anything and everything related to business success depends on how well you are using the data. Be it your audience, your competition, or your product, everything is based on analyzing the data at your hand and making the decision accordingly. 

If you are using the wrong data or no real data at all, then you are going to end up risking your content strategy. Thus you should use data analytics very seriously, and take decisions accordingly. 

For example, if you are writing a blog, it requires you to collect data on who your audience is, what they like, what topics align with their pain points, which competitors are already pitching in a solution, and what gaps you can use. Once you have this data, you can create content and your strategies yield better results.

You can use tools like Google Analytics and Iconosquare to gain insights, plan your content, and monitor your performance. Iconosquare’s social media analytics feature helps you monitor your performance across different social media platforms. 

This helps you understand how your content is performing, what works well, what doesn’t, what your audience likes, and so on. This data again helps you improvise and optimize your content to bring in more engagement from your audience. 

3. Inter-team communication

As mentioned, communication and collaboration play key roles in executing and managing content. Making it important to establish proper channels for internal team communication and collaboration. 

Many tools offer real-time messaging, group chat, calling, file sharing, feedback, approval, comment, etc that ensure smooth collaboration between teams. You can use Iconosquare’s team collaboration feature to deal with all the back-and-forth communication involved till approving and publishing content. 

You get to share your files with your team for review. You can edit content, leave notes, reject or accept submissions, etc. Along with internal communication, Iconosquare also lets you share the content with your clients for feedback and approvals.

4. Time management

To achieve their objectives on time and keep a healthy work-life balance, content creators and managers must practice effective time management. Prioritizing tasks, setting time-bound goals, and utilizing tools and apps, can easily streamline your content workflow and maximize productivity.

Good time management practices, also involve planning everything with proper timeframes and abiding by them. So, make sure you have your content plan ready and schedule them beforehand to get them published on time across different platforms without fail. 

To track your schedule and content, you can use content calendars and for scheduling you can use  Iconosquare to schedule all your posts from one place. Iconosquare’s Publishing feature also lets you schedule the same posts on different platforms, and create post drafts for approval, that can be shared and reviewed by your team and clients. 

5. Grouping similar tasks

A crucial component of managing content is organizing and categorizing it. However, given the enormous amount, velocity, and variety of internal and external content that organizations - particularly large organizations - manage, keeping up with it is difficult. The longer you wait to organize your content, the more likely you will miss opportunities to use your digital marketing content for better results.

This is where task batching can help you improve the content creation process while boosting efficiency and productivity. 

This technique is about grouping content creation tasks in batches to complete similar tasks at once. For example, instead of creating a new featured image every time a post is ready to go live, you work on several images several weeks in advance.

Manage your content smartly

Today, content is at the core of every business and industry. There isn't a sector of the economy today that doesn't depend on content in some way, which is why content management has emerged as a crucial strategy for all types of organizations, including businesses, nonprofits, and governmental bodies.

So work on making a solid content strategy. Follow the tips and optimize your content strategy accordingly. Choose the right tools to support your team through different stages of content management and ensure smooth work execution with better efficiency.

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