More businesses are recognizing the need to have a content team. They understand the value of content but lack the talent. They need creators who can interview, tell stories, do research, and gather data. All in an effort to drive traffic, build relationships, and increase sales. To manage these efforts you’ll want to create a content team dashboard.
Why create a content team dashboard
A Content Team dashboard helps manage the production, distribution, and promotion of content. It provides a central place of resources and tools for content production. The dashboard also streamlines the process for distribution and promotion. When everyone, including you, has the information needed in one place then performance can improve.
Identify the resources and tools
What does your writing team need to be successful? Well, this depends on their role and responsibilities. Here are some questions to help you start creating resources.
- Writer’s Brief: What is the goal of the content they’re writing? A writer’s brief will help you define the goal so they can write with clarity.
- Submissions: How do they submit their work? What does that process include?
- Deadlines: When is the deadline(s) for submission?
- URLs: What brand links might they reference frequently?
- Directory: Who will they work with? What is their availability and contact info?
- Best Practices: What tips are available to help them with content creation (conversion, reach, readability, etc)?
- Media: Are there images or media they should use?
- Ideas: Is there a list of ideas for content? These can be team and client-generated.
- Payment Process: How will freelancers be paid? What do they need to submit? How long will it take to process?
Group resources by need and frequency of use. List the resources your team uses most often first to make them easily accessible.
Communicate with your team of creators frequently. Find out what resources work well or need to be refined. The dashboard should serve both the business and the creators. Flexibility is key as your business grows.
Who is on your content team
Your directory helps with communication, collaboration, and connection. Include writers, contributors, editors, social media coordinators, email marketing strategists, videographers, and any other team members who have a role in content for your business. It’s especially helpful to include availability when working across time zones.
A gallery view allows you to display profile images of each team member. I enjoy seeing who I’m working with and putting a face to a name.
Managing production and performance
How do you manage content? Being able to view all of your content with a bird’s eye view helps with planning. Databases share information between views while allowing you to stay on the same page.
- Calendar view is great for deadlines, publishing, and promotion
- Kanban view is ideal for status of content
- List view can be used to view all published posts
- Table view helps sort posts if you’re tracking writers, ranking performance, etc.
A comprehensive editorial calendar helps everyone work better because you have information in one place instead of opening multiple tabs or applications.
The content pages are detailed because they track information and data related to a blog post, email campaign, or social media post. Here is a list of fields you can use.
- Content categories and tags
- Deadlines
- Distribution channels
- Links for drafts and posts
- Objectives
- Performance data and rankings
- Status
- Creator
Creators can either post their work directly in the body of the content page or embed a link. Tracking these details in one place helps streamline work for everyone on the team. Saving time and money.
Who has access to the dashboard
When working with people in different roles, granting the right type of access is critical. There are two sides to access: enabling and protecting. When determining access consider roles and responsibilities. You want to grant enough access to enable people to do their job well. However, you must protect your business so be mindful of how much access is granted.
- Full access is ideal for admins. Admins typically are team members in a founder, executive, or ops management role
- Edit access is ideal for contributors. Contributors may include editors, writers, social media coordinators, community managers, content managers, etc. You can add them as guests to the dashboard.
- Comment access is ideal for 3rd-party feedback.
📌 TIP: You can give access at the parent level and change it at the child level when necessary.
Benefits of a dashboard for creators
Besides having a central location for content, the dashboard creates transparency. Creators are able to see all the content. This allows them to build off previous topics and link back to previous posts. Creators can also see and learn from the content that’s performing well with your audience. Thus providing examples and ideas to improve their own content.
The dashboard only works as well as it’s structured and adhered to. If it’s not easy to use and find information, then it can become a constraint.
A well organized and detailed dashboard encourages autonomy and reduces email when writers know how to use it and where to find information. Thus allowing you to focus on your most important work.
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