What Is Content Governance?

Content governance is a system and a set of guidelines that determine how an organization’s content gets created, published, and managed. Governance allows marketers and content strategists at a B2B brand to:

• Establish the roles and responsibilities for the ongoing management of its online presence, including content, communications, and strategy
• Create and maintain a set of comprehensive policies and procedures for managing content
• Document, implement, and evolve digital content standards
• Monitor and enforce standards and policy compliance

Content strategy tools and resources to support governance may include editorial style guides, RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) charts for assigning roles and responsibilities, content workflows and review policies, page templates, and content management systems.

Benefits of Content Governance for B2B Marketers

Content governance ensures that there are controls in place for when/what/why content is being created, approved, and distributed. At large B2B organizations, where multiple teams are creating and publishing content, these controls are essential. When governance is well-established, it enables a brand to tell a consistent story across paid, earned, and owned media channels. Content governance also helps a B2B company to:

• Ensure that its digital presence supports strategic objectives of the organization it represents
• Hold all stakeholders accountable within the governance process
• Improve process efficiency by clearly defining content ownership, roles, and responsibilities
• Establish policies and processes informing documented content workflows
• Create transparency
• Improve decision-making
• Avoid lawsuits

Establishing a Content Workflow

Once a governance team is established and that team has defined its mission and policies, a key step is to create a content workflow, a standardized process for content creation that each participant can follow. Not all workflows look the same: What’s right for one organization will depend on its goals and resources. B2B organizations typically have plenty of internal subject matter experts, but they are not professional writers, so a content workflow gives them much-needed clarity on process, and empowers them to contribute more content.

Maintaining Governance Over Time

Content governance does not end when a content workflow begins. That workflow should be reviewed on a regular basis by its stakeholders (usually a governance board) and updated in response to what needs fixing or when there are changes to an organization’s goals. These updates should be shared with everyone who has a role in the publishing plan.

Finally, it’s important to measure success by regularly collecting and evaluating key metrics. If a certain area of content is underperforming, a company needs to either rethink its strategy or cut its losses to focus its resources on areas of content or channels that are winning.