This year, there’s an exciting new strategy happening among government communicators. For the first time (as indicated by our recent trend survey), 2017 will be the year of content marketing in government. This exciting development means that engagement with content like blogs, newsletters, and web will be highly valued as a way to connect with citizens.
But creating content can be just half of the battle. Getting content pieces approved is often an enormous challenge – especially if it needs to be approved in a timely manner.
Here are a few tips for streamlining content so it’s most effective:
One of the best ways to ensure engagement with your content is to consistently communicate it to your audience. Whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly, your audience will come to expect ongoing communication so your information stays relevant.
Creating evergreen content – or content that is considered sustainable, lasting, or consistently relevant – will help your communications stay on schedule. Evergreen content is not necessarily tied to an event or trend – it stands alone and can be useful long past when it’s published. By building up evergreen content and getting it through the approval process ahead of time, this will ensure you have enough content to publish consistently.
Here is a recent example of evergreen content sent from the U.S. Department of House and Urban Development:
While approval processes can be long as content pieces are passed along the chain of command, having the most direct access to the final approver can be an ideal way to shorten the approval process for content. Wherever possible, seek to cut the line of content approvers and go directly to the final approver in order to decrease the time it takes from drafting to a final version.
One of the best ways to fill in gaps in your content calendar is to repurpose approved content – or pieces that have already gone through the approval process, but may not have been seen by your audience in some time. Think back to a content piece that was popular within the last year – can it be reposted? It’s likely that some content pieces had high visibility because they were tied to an event or trend, but others will be able to stand alone. Revamping a content piece and reposting can be a great way to continue posting content and keeping to your schedule.
Creating a piece of content is largely a project management process. From start to finish, there are a number of steps in between. A great way to ensure that a piece keeps moving is to create a content calendar, set deadlines – and to enforce them. When sending along a piece of content for review, make sure to highlight the due date for edits. Sending a reminder message 1-2 days before the deadline is another great way to ensure your approver is on time with their edits, and will make the approval process much faster.
Are looking for more tips on creating content strategy? Be sure to download “A Guide to Content Marketing in the Public Sector.”
