Content guidelines are the backbone of a content strategy. In a perfect world, they unite writers and help them standardize their style and tone. They also keep everyone on message, on brand, and speaking with one clear voice.
The problem with traditional content guidelines.
There are limits to traditional content guidelines. They just aren’t built to support today’s exploding content creation. Especially in large enterprises.
Who’s got time to consult the brand book or style guide? It’s probably sitting on a shelf or lost on a server somewhere.
And with so many non-writers and subject-matter experts producing content (sometimes in a language other than their own), it’s next to impossible to provide effective writing training.
More centralized editing teams are a good idea. But with only so many editors, and loads of content to get through, they tend to create bottlenecks in your workflow.
All of this leads to content chaos and it looks something like this:
How to help everyone speak with one clear voice.
A better approach is to capture and digitize your content strategy. And make it available anywhere people are creating content, in the content tools they use.
This keeps your brand and style guidelines available to all writers. And it keeps them dynamic, so you can be sure every content creator has access to the very latest standards about the way your enterprise communicates. Whether that’s one style, or several.
When all your content creators build content that reflects your brand, you can make your strategy a reality and help your organization speak with one clear voice.
See how with Acrolinx.
Want more on content guidelines and how to build them? Check out Episode 2 of our Conquering Chaos web series: Developing the Strategy: What It Means to Establish Your Content Guidelines.