How do you assign roles for content development?

Assigning content development roles is like running a newsroom. Treating your team like journalists in newsroom can lead to remarkable outcomes. Assignments should be crafted based on individuals' subject matter expertise, creative skills, and deep understanding of clients' businesses, audiences, and desired actions. Just like a newsroom, where reporters cover specific beats, let each team member play to their strengths and passions. Embrace subject matter experts to deliver in-depth insights, creative minds to infuse engaging storytelling, and analysts to decipher data-backed strategies. By aligning assignments with unique expertise, we can create content that resonates, captures attention, and drives desired actions.

You can’t assign roles until you have a plan, and you can’t have a plan until you have a strategy, and you can’t have a strategy until you have a vision. Without context the question is pointless no?

Content is a product element, just like code or material. It's amenable, mostly, to agile methodologies. At a high lefvel it can be helpful to use a roadmap, which you show to stakeholders and get feedback on at least quarterly. And then revisit this as needed, for example, when news or other events conspire to break the roadmap. You can analyze larger initiatives into smaller, granular tasks that you accomplish in shorter timelines, for example, one- to two-week sprints. Tools like Jira are built for this type of planning as they support roadmapping, epics, task analysis by user story, and task assignment.

When it comes to assigning roles for content development, your content should align with your overarching goals. Understand Your Objectives: Begin by identifying what you aim to achieve with your content. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, educate your audience, or something else? Be specific. According to the CMI, 72% of successful content marketers have a documented content strategy. Know Your Audience: Do thorough research to understand your target audience's preferences and pain points. Your content should speak directly to their needs. Select the Right Channels: Depending on your goals and audience, choose the platforms that will maximize your reach.

In developing technical or complicated content, it often is relatively "easy" to identify the appropriate SMEs to create content. What is equally important, in my experience, is to properly identify content reviewers who can understand the content but who are NOT SMEs to perform what I call a "sniff test". Does the content make sense to readers who are not intimate with the information? Could such a person act on the content? If not, it might be time for intervention in the way of editing or a rewrite--or additional review by another SME.

To collaboratively assess the skills and strengths for content roles, initiate with a skills inventory. Have team members rate their proficiency in key areas. Combine this with a passion audit, where individuals express interests beyond current expertise. Create a skills matrix that maps these inventories against the roles needed. Encourage team members to self-nominate for positions they feel passionate about, ensuring they're not just capable, but also motivated. Facilitate peer feedback sessions where teammates recommend each other for roles based on observed strengths. This holistic approach ensures a dynamic allocation where roles align with both competence and enthusiasm.

Meetings can and do get in the way of work, especially around content creation. Once assigned, your writer should be trusted and allowed to work to deadlines (be that for a draft or the final product) without status meetings. Ditto for "feedback sessions" which are all too often just people arguing about style and rewriting someone else's assigned content to match how THEY would have said it. Instead of all those complications, a draft review (if needed) deadline and a final deadline should be sufficient for professional writers.

Open communication is vital, but different people manage their workloads in different ways. In order to honor different work style, when I assign content, I: -- Let the content provider know that I am available for meetings if that would be helpful -- Put a reminder on their calendar of when the content is due -- Send out an email reminder before the content is due (thanking those who have completed their deadlines) -- If/when an SME is running late against the deadline, I engage one-on-one -- In ALL communications, I am as gracious as possible, assuring the content provider that I understand this might not be their favorite task and that we are sincerely grateful for their contribution(s)

Once you have a clear strategy, it's time to allocate responsibilities. It's like building a well-coordinated team, and each player should know their role. Editor: The editor ensures that the content is not only well-written but also aligned with your content strategy. They check for grammar, tone, and consistency. SEO Specialist: This person ensures your content is optimized for search engines, which can significantly impact your content's visibility. Consider this: 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search. Designer: Visual content is king. A designer ensures your graphics and images are eye-catching and on-brand. Studies show that colored visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%.

Tell people what they did right. That helps the writer identify their strengths and do more of what they do well. Be detailed, specific, and explain the "why." That's especially important in content marketing, where writers may not understand the link between their work and the organization's strategy.

I agree, also, audience needs in terms of contents consumed are constantly evolving, it's very essential to adjust your content roles and niche periodically to meet this evolving experience.

Your content strategy isn't set in stone. It's essential to continually evaluate and refine your content roles to stay relevant. Regular Feedback: Establish a feedback loop. Listen to your team. What's working, what isn't? Are there new trends you should be capitalizing on? Customer feedback is invaluable here too. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Dive into the analytics. What content is performing well? What isn't? Tools like Google Analytics can help you understand your audience's behavior. Flexibility: Be open to adjusting your roles as needed. As you grow and your audience evolves, so should your content strategy. Remember, 45% of marketers say content marketing is their most effective strategy in 2023.

I've found that the best approach to assigning content is to let people play to their strengths. Each person on your team has unique skills and perspectives that allow them to bring something special to your content. By getting to know your team, you can understand where their strengths, weaknesses, and passions lie. You're then able to utilize this knowledge of your writing team to determine who is best equipped to bring each piece of content to life.

Doubling down on what Chris has said, encourage folks to play to their strengths. However, to do so you need to understand each individual and their performance. Therefore, unless this is your immediate team - it may be difficult to achieve. This is where collaboration comes in, when searching for those to make up the team to develop the content- ensure you have all the right players to win the game. Collaborate across the organization, ask other leader who they would nominate, get those who want to be involved a shot, and celebrate the wins!