Lisa Dougherty, who manages the editorial calendar and all communications with our blog contributorsBy Michele Linn, Content Marketing Institute’s Vice President of Content
In 2010, I was lucky enough to join Joe on his journey when he launched Content Marketing Institute. Looking back at that (crazy) time, we got a lot done with a super-small team, but much of the process was ad hoc and trial and error.
Fast-forward to 2015 when we have launched another blog (and will soon be adding another). These days, the process is no longer a nice-to-have, but it’s a necessity. It’s not a matter of not having enough people on the team (as we do), but because there are more people, it’s even more critical to have processes documented so things are getting done consistently and we don’t drown in e-mails in which we’re figuring out who needs to do what.
The information below, replete with checklists, is CMI’s general process for our blog posts. No doubt this process will evolve between the time I am writing this and the time Content Inc. is published, but this offers a general framework so you can learn from our mistakes (although, truly, there is sometimes no better way).
Before we dig into our blog processes, it’s useful to walk through the kinds of people you need on your editorial team. For CMI, this includes:
Lisa Dougherty, who manages the editorial calendar and all communications with our blog contributors
Ann Gynn, who edits all the posts for logic, flow, and structure
Yatri Roleston, who uploads and proofreads all our posts into WordPress
Ann, Yatri, and Lisa Higgs help across all the blogs, while Lisa Dougherty is focused on CMI.
Tip: When you have a high-volume blog that accepts contributors, look for a blog manager who has good communication, diplomacy, and business etiquette—and most importantly, someone you can trust implicitly to get the job done. This person needs the skills to be able to foster positive relationships with outside and internal members as well as strong project management skills, a thirst for knowledge, and a process-oriented mindset.
In previous evolutions of the blog, we had one person, first I was the one and then Jodi Harris, who managed the calendar, contributor relationships, and all the editing. However, as we increased the number of posts—and wanted to offer the best possible experience to our contributors as they are core of our community—we broke this into two roles: one who manages the calendar and contributors and one who handles the editing.
For a high-frequency blog like CMI, I far favor the structure we have now:
It’s very helpful to bounce ideas off each other, including what we should run, what titles work best, etc.
It’s a much more sustainable model that allows for people to take time off as needed—and it’s something that we can more easily manage if staffing were to change.
Tip: It’s worth every penny to have a strong copyeditor review everything before it is published. Even if you have other editors on the team, it helps to have a fresh perspective on the live version of the piece and someone whose sole focus is to proofread.
That said, if you are starting out and don’t have a rigorous posting schedule, you may be able to get away with having two people on the team: a managing editor who reviews and schedules all posts (and writes as needed) and a copyeditor who checks everything before publication.
This is similar to the model we use for Intelligent Content (one of our brand extensions). Marcia Riefer Johnston is the managing editor of the Intelligent Content blog. She is a writer, editor, and member of the community who engages in conversations and asks great questions that serve as fodder for the blog. We publish two posts per week on the Intelligent Content blog, which is a much lower frequency than for the CMI blog, so Marcia’s role is a combination of Lisa Dougherty’s and Ann Gynn’s. Lisa Higgs proofreads all posts, and I review all the content at a high level to make sure it is in line with CMI’s overall editorial strategy (as I also do for CMI).
Tip: While managing editors have critical skills, if you need an editor who can also write (as is the case for the blogs we have launched), it’s very useful to hire someone with skills—and relationships—in your industry. Not only can this person sniff out good stories, but she can also find the best writers in the space (and call in favors if needed).
The CMI blog receives far more submissions than we can accept. In many ways, this is a great problem to have, but in other ways, it’s a lot of communication to manage for content we don’t end up using. As such, our process for working with all contributors has evolved as we have tried to really focus our time on publishing the best possible content while also respecting all the people who are generous with their time and contributions.
Here are the general steps we follow:
We review all posts to see if they are a fit with the mission of the CMI blog. Lisa Dougherty is our point of contact for all who submit posts, and she responds to all inquiries.
Tip: If you have a blog to which contributors can submit content, it’s useful to have blog guidelines that you can easily share. Additionally, make it clear, as CMI does, if you only accept posts that are complete; we don’t consider pitches because the full text an author creates is often what differentiates a go versus a no-go post.
If we quickly know the post is not a fit, the author is notified.
If the post has potential, it is entered into our editorial tracker/calendar (more on this below). We have also created a central repository for all submissions using Dropbox so all posts can be easily accessed by all editorial team members. I, as CMI’s vice president of content, am the first line of defense and review all feasible submissions to ensure a global and practical fit. From there, one of three things happens:
The author of a post that is not a fit is notified by Lisa.
An “on-the-fence” post is reviewed by Ann. Lisa follows up with the author to let him or her know more time may be needed.
A definite-fit post is edited by Ann. We often expedite editing on submissions that are well written and follow CMI blog guidelines, as well those from regular contributors.
Tip: Create template responses for common submission scenarios that can be customized and e-mailed by the editorial team. These can save a tremendous amount of time (and they are especially useful when your primary outreach contact is out of the office).
After a blog post submission is considered viable, Lisa will then schedule it on the editorial calendar. On the line of its run date, she includes author name, headline, image type (custom or CMI stock image), general status, and upload status.
Managing our bloggers has become an increasing priority for us, and something we want to invest the time into. CMI relies heavily on influencers, as they write for our blog, speak at our events, participate in our Twitter chats, speak at our webinars—and more. It’s also common that they spread the word about CMI. Because of this, our bloggers are the key influencers for CMI—and the industry as a whole—so we want them to have the best possible experience.
While checklists have their limitations, they are exceptionally useful in the publication process. Here are a few of the checklists for every blog post we publish.
Tip: It can be helpful to set up templates for posts that have recurring elements. For instance, our podcast show notes have standard sections and links. The author uses this template to create the show notes each week, which saves time for both the author and the editorial team (and the output is more consistent).
These questions are checked off before the blog post has been finalized:
Are there any errors or inconsistencies? Does the post follow a logical conclusion?
Does the post include actionable next steps? Will a reader know what to do after reading this?
Does the post include things that make it easy to skim?
– Are headers descriptive?
– Are key points in bold?
– Are there places where bulleted lists make sense?
– Can we add screenshots to help illustrate or walk through key points?
Is the headline effective?
Has the post been fact-checked?
Does the post include relevant internal (CMI) links to give readers more info (and help with SEO)?
Are there too many external links? Do the links provide an example, add relevant detail, or provide source info for stats—not used purely for link-back or other promotional purposes?
Is there a “cover image” that serves as the main image for the post—or does one need to be created?
Does the post include a relevant call to action? (We have a running list of CTAs that the editorial team can use for reference. It’s a mix of events, offers, and most popular and useful content.)
Is there a previous post where we should add a link to the new post?
Is there an excerpt for that post that is 255 characters max that can be used for e-mail and social sharing?
Is there a metadescription that is 156 characters at most? This will be displayed in the search engine results.
Tip: Keep a list of top-performing posts to which you want to continually link in other things you publish. We keep this list in our editorial tracker.
Add “Click to Tweet” if appropriate. This is an easy way to prepopulate tweets that cover key points in a post.
Tip: Create a basic style guide for your team (even if it is a team of one). Decide on which professional style guide you want to generally rely (CMI uses AP style) and then develop a custom addendum (document) that stipulates your brand’s variations or special cases that deviate from the primary guide. CMI’s style guide is in Google Docs, to which the editorial team—and whole company—has access.
Once posts go through the editing process, they sometimes need to be returned to the author for clarification on some questions or additional information. In these cases, the post may be reviewed multiple times.
Once the blog post has been finalized, Yatri loads it into our content management system, WordPress. Here are our publication checklists:
Set up the author profile if he or she is a first-time CMI author.
Set the publication date and time.
Select the appropriate categories, which are the main topics of your blog. (For instance, CMI categories include things such as content marketing strategy, visual design, and measurement.)
Select the author
Add the cover/main image. (Note: We also use Yoast’s SEO plug-in so we can upload images at the right size for social.)
Add all images and label accordingly for SEO optimization.
Tip: All the assets are uploaded to Dropbox for the editorial team to access. Each author has his or her own folder, and all assets are labeled consistently with author name_title_name reviewed_date of version.
Subheads should be H2.
CMI links should open in same tab.
Outside links should open into a new tab.
CTAs should be italics, not bold.
Under CTA, add “Cover image via …” and a link to the source, if available.
Add “more” tag to beginning of post (usually 4 lines/2 paragraphs down in the article. This keeps the entire post from appearing on the CMI home page—only a snippet of the post will show unless visitors click “Read More”).
Maintain 1 line of space between an H2 subhead and the copy below it. Also add 1 line of space between the copy and a bulleted list. (If you do this in Word, it should transfer automatically when flowed into WordPress.)
Include the permalink: 4–5 words with dashes; words someone may use in a long-tail search query.
Include the excerpt: 235 characters max for social.
Write the metadescription: 156 characters max for the SERP.
Upload images: limit to 3–5 words with dashes. Words in images can be similar to the headline but not identical; change up the order and augment with a new word that reflects the image.
Check all links.
Make sure everything is displaying properly and all images are rendering clearly.
Make sure formatting is consistent and correct (e.g., subheads are H2; bullet points are aligned properly; images aren’t running into text anywhere, etc.).
Read and verify links in author’s bio.
Make sure author’s bio picture is showing up.
Make sure there is “Cover image illustration by …” credit.
Once posts are loaded into WordPress, Yatri connects with CMI’s e-mail team so it can load the daily e-mail.
We have been using Google spreadsheets as the basis for our editorial calendar/tracker for years (although we are looking into a number of new tools presently). Like everything else, this spreadsheet has evolved, and we keep our critical calendars and list in this one place. This is the “bible” for our editorial team. These are the tabs included:
Schedule of upcoming posts. This is also where we track notes such as permalinks we need to use.
Posts in process. This tab is a running list of every post we are working on, segregated by which team member is working on the post. (For instance, I have the section for posts I need to review. I know to look here instead of having to have Lisa e-mail me each time a post arrives.)
Priority keywords. These are the keywords we want to rank for as well as details on each.
Editorial agenda. The team updates this tab with anything we want to discuss during our weekly check-in calls.
Top posts and pages. These are the posts that perform the best that we want to promote more heavily via social or within our editorial.
SEO best practices. These are reminders to the team on things such as images, metadescriptions, and anything related to SEO.
Brick content. This tab tracks any big content we have coming out.
Archived blog posts. A list of all the blog posts that have run for reference (we simply move the published posts from the “Schedule of upcoming posts” tab here).
Important links. These are things we refer to regularly that are handy to have in one spot.
Calls to action. This is a running list of calls to action we can use in our blog posts.
Key topics. These are the primary categories we use for our blog posts.
Once posts are scheduled, Lisa reaches out to authors with a preview of their posts. This includes:
Final draft of the post
Publication date
Easy ideas on how to share the post via social channels
This step is useful, not only because it helps increase the sharing of the post, but because it also ensures there are no surprises with the final post.
Tip: Lisa does not seek final approval from the authors; however, by sending the authors the final draft and including the publication date, the authors know they should review the post and address any concerns before that date.
Authors are also notified when they receive the first comment to their live post. Lisa is notified of all comments, and our assistant, Kim Borden, moderates all comments so we can quickly remove any spam.
Tip: While our social team has its own system for content promotion, the editorial team socially shares all posts as well. Authors have noticed this—and have been very appreciative.
Of course, we measure what we are doing so we can provide more content that works—and less of what does not.
While I often dig into Google Analytics, we look at the posts more systematically on a monthly basis. The data we track include:
Publication date
Title
Author
Tweets
LinkedIn shares
Facebook likes
Other social shares
Total social shares
E-mail conversions from that page
Page views
Many top-performing posts have high social shares as well as e-mail conversions, but this is not always the case.
Once we have a list of top posts, we share those with the CMI team members via our private LinkedIn group and encourage them to share these in their social networks (with prewritten tweets from our community manager, Mo Wagner), and Lisa individually reaches out to authors who have top-performing posts—and those we want to work with again.
While I think about process more than I ever imagined I would, it’s core to creating consistent, high-quality content. It’s also the guardrails and structure we need so we have time to think creatively.