Should You Be Cutting Corners When Creating Content? (Absolutely!) Sponsored

Henry Ford is a man who knew his stuff when it came to optimizing workflows. So when he spoke about how “most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them,” there’s an important lesson we should take away from this.

As someone who spends probably too much time slogging through the same tasks all day long, you understand how important automation is to your workflow. The more streamlined your process, the more efficient and consistent your results will be.

Now, when it comes to creating content, you may wonder how much of that work can actually be automated. After all, your goal is to develop something unique and eye-catching, and writers can’t do that if they’re shifting it to an automated system. Right?

Correct. They can’t shift the actual act of writing content to software. They can, however, use a content management tool that aids in organizing and managing all the surrounding tasks. Much like other common forms of workflow automation, the goal isn’t to take away your job; it’s to take away the tasks surrounding it that distract you from getting that work done.

With that, let’s segue into a discussion about GatherContent. Of all the tools we’ve tried to manage our own content gathering, composition, and publication process, this one deserves the most credit. We’d like to share with you some of the features and benefits of working with a content management tool like GatherContent.

GatherContent: The Better Way to Organize and Produce Content

Do you know how you can tell if a company is one worth trusting and relying on? One of the first things that’ll tip you off is whether or not they have first-hand experience with your pain – and this is where GatherContent got their start.

The founders of GatherContent were much like you. They ran a digital agency that focused on producing content-heavy projects, but found themselves mired down in the stress associated with wrangling content for their website projects. Although they had developed clear processes for web design and development, the content creation process was chaotic and hung heavily over them like an albatross.

Luckily, the founders realized they weren’t the only ones plagued by this battle with content, so they created the GatherContent online tool, which now helps thousands of teams around the world more easily and quickly produce web content.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Great, another tool…” just hold on a second and think about the process you currently use to create content.

• Does your team produce your content in Word documents stored on their individual computers?
• Do you struggle tracking down the latest versions of those documents that have multiple revisions?
• Where does your content tracking take place? In Excel?
• How do you hold content creators accountable for deadlines if you don’t have a system to easily track them?
• Are threads of communication getting lost or projects delayed as team members struggle to track down content-related correspondence in their inbox?
• Is the process of copying and pasting content into your content management system taking too much time?

Let’s face it: there are too many people, tasks, and platforms involved in the content creation process. And, if left unchecked, it can create a totally chaotic environment – one that’s not conducive to the quality of work you want to produce.

So, let’s get back to GatherContent. It’s a platform we use here at SpeckyBoy to manage our own processes (and we even used it to write this article!) If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits, we’ve got them right here:

1. Centralization

There are a number of ways your content process could get thrown out of whack. If you want to mitigate for those risk factors, the GatherContent system centralizes and organizes everything you need – projects, documents, message chains, and more – all within the same place.

2. Structure

Although you want all your content to be uniquely crafted, that doesn’t mean you don’t want a consistent thread to run through it all, from page to page. GatherContent provides users with the ability to create templates for contributors to use, simplifying the process of writing content while ensuring the right structure is used.

3. Comfort

To get started with GatherContent, all you need to do is create a sitemap, and then get to work. You can write, edit, and review your content with tools your team is already comfortable using.

4. Control

Regardless of how many team members have their hands in the pot, you won’t have to worry about any of their actions going unchecked. You can use GatherContent to invite team members to write, edit, and approve content – and give them role-specific permissions so no one steps outside the boundaries set for them.

5. Task Management

In addition to controlling access to the platform, you can also use GatherContent to assign individual roles and tasks to users. This’ll help in maintaining accountability, establishing visibility into your pipeline, and ensuring content remains on track with deadlines.

6. Commenting & Notification System

Email is not the most reliable way to communicate with your team, especially as we all tend to struggle meeting inbox-zero these days. Luckily, this tool comes with a notification system that helps users keep everyone up-to-date on what’s happening in real time, and inline comment functionality that always makes it clear what feedback actions are related to​.

7. CMS Migration

Although it might not seem like a lot of time is wasted in loading content manually into your content management system, you might be surprised. With GatherContent, you can spare yourself all that copy-and-paste, and let the tool instead automatically migrate your content into platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Kentico, Sitefinity, and more. Or you can use their API to migrate it elsewhere.

If you’re trying to remove the pains associated with content production and you want a better way to launch projects on time, this tool is worth a closer look. It works just as well for stuff like regular content creation, new website builds, as well as website redesign projects.

Want to get started with GatherContent? They offer a 30-day free trial with no credit card required to activate your membership. Get yours now.

This post has been sponsored by Syndicate Ads.