It’s Not All About The Solo Content Manager
Teamwork matters more than you know
Hiring a content manager can boost your organization’s marketing performance on so many levels. It is excellent for creating a unique tone of voice for your brand. It is beneficial for SEO and producing mass loads of content in a shorter time. Also, it is excellent for the creative team to have a wordsmith on board. But many organizations tend to get too excited about hiring a content manager for the first time — and perhaps go a bit too far.
It is often in job descriptions that I see content managers described as the professionals who “write, edit, and own” different kinds of written materials. This means handling SEO writing, copywriting, PR, social media marketing, assisting a senior manager (by writing content for talks and presentations), and managing the entire content niche in the organization — all at the same time.
Nevermind that most professionals (and human beings) are not equally skilled in all types of writing listed above, such work overload has clear consequences. In addition to accelerated burnout, they are investing more effort into one activity over another. The stretch doesn’t even save that much money for the company. Why? Because burnout causes the personnel to change now and then. And replacing, as any HR would tell you, is very expensive.
This article aims to present a different approach to the content manager’s title. I’ll start by differentiating the content manager from the content marketer and the content writer. Then, I’ll share some tremendous examples of how content professionals can work together to achieve great things.
Let’s start by stating what the content manager isn’t. The manager is not a writer. He or she is a manager, meaning they manage projects on a large scale, sometimes also functioning as quality control (or an editor, as he or she would probably like to call it). The content manager also manages people, which we will get to later on.
Next, we have a content marketer. The content marketer is a strategist (often an analyst). Her or his job is to plan and execute a content plan that answers the company’s or clients’ demands. Preferably with a high level of ROI. Sometimes the content marketer is a marketing manager. At other times, an SEO manager or a social media specialist. The background doesn’t matter, as long as one can deliver results.
And finally, we have a content writer. A content writer should have a way with words, not necessarily on the marketing level. First and foremost, they should be able to produce content that readers can read and understand. If it is both readable and engaging, everybody wins. If the writer is also an expert in your industry, it’s a real catch.
In some organizations, the writers work full-time. In others, they are freelancers, who sometimes work for competitor clients in a niche industry (the only way to make decent money nowadays). On rare occasions, the writers are the companies’ employees who share the company’s blog’s writing tasks.
Whatever structure your team has, notice that we are talking about a group (not an individual). A gifted individual can deliver significant value to the company, but a team can provide even what seems daring, or even impossible, at first.
An excellent example of how great minds can work together is the Unwrap This Town project from 2018, a web mini-series in which Jinkx Monsoon (RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5 winner) visits different locations in Seattle. It is a PR piece made for the Visit Seattle tourism agency, that couldn’t have happened without a visionary manager, a brilliant freelancer (Monsoon), and a strategist to create the buzz.
A more recent example is LogoMaker, a company whose main product is a logo maker. But the company’s content isn’t just about logos. Its blog targets everything startup, from branding to marketing operations. Creating such content requires either a multi-talented writer or many employees willing to share their knowledge and experience. Such a strategy also requires a sharp analyst who knows at all times what the audience is, what its interests are, and what content performs best.
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Should a content manager also be a strategist or a writer? Sure, but just as an art director should also be a graphic designer. To be a fruitful manager, especially a first leading position, you need to have your hands free.
Establish your brand’s tone of voice. Find experienced writers who can bring your vision to life (don’t be afraid to “steal” them from your competitors), and always be ready to do something out of the ordinary. You can never know when you’ll come up with the most innovative campaign, but you want to have the most capable team to make it happen.
