12 Nifty Resources to Make Content Managers More Effective
Every content manager can benefit from new efficiency techniques, because there’s never enough time in the day for someone managing creative teams. However, finding fresh resources can be a daunting, soul-sublimating task for people who are already bombarded with the written word in various forms 24/7.
Here are the best resources for content managers looking to learn specific things, brush up on old lessons, or enter new playing fields within social content.
1. Website: A List Apart
From the perspective of the web designers and creators, this site explores content in a way that will make most content managers’ heads hurt. It will force readers to think of their content in terms of its physical layout, coding needs, and user friendliness.
Why is this amazing? Frankly, because it will teach content managers to understand the limitations of content, so that web creators won’t have to later break everyone’s hearts after a piece is written but useless for the web.
With great titles like The Cure for Content-Delay Syndrome and Language: The Ultimate User Interface, readers can’t help but fulfill their curiosity by clicking. Content managers will learn by osmosis from this site how to draw-in readers, in addition to learning to make their content more effective for web designers and programmers.
2. Article: How to Write Magnetic Headlines
This 11-part series by Copyblogger covers just about every facet of titling a piece of content for social promotion. From Twitter to Facebook, general copy to linkbait, every detail has been discussed for content managers who need a fresh perspective on why titling counts. The author, Brian Clark, even covers titles that can be dangerous if used improperly.
3. Article: What Is Content Marketing, and Why Does Your Company Need It?
This tutorial for intermediates on the social web is a great refresher for content managers who answer the titled question day after day. While most clients stop asking the question after hiring a company, every email implicitly asks again, ‘Why are we doing this?’ ‘What’s our end goal?’ and worse ‘So what?’
After reviewing CIO’s piece by James A. Martin, content managers will feel more alert and ready to confidently explain to clients why this all matters. From layman’s explanations to studies, great resources to examples, this resource is one that should be re-visited annually.
4. Website: Content Marketing Institute
Via Content Marketing Institute
This site offers great pieces like How to Put Together an Editorial Calendar for Content Marketing as well as white papers about content, webinars, and advice columns. It’s a fun resource for content managers because it’s light-hearted writing from respectable industry leaders.
5. Article: 35 Tips & Tricks to Manage Multi-Author Blogs
While this article is most useful for individuals rather than content managers, there will come a time in every content manager’s career when the publication and promotion team is unavailable, and a post simply needs to go up. When that day comes, content managers will thank their lucky stars that they have this post bookmarked for future reference.
A treasure-trove of WordPress know-how and resources, this article explains everything from Gravatars to setting up multi-author comment notifications. Even savvy publications teammates might learn something from this impressive piece of copy!
6. Article: The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time
If you read this title while muttering ‘yeah, yeah,’ emailing a friend about dinner plans, and sorting through a file of applications, then this is a resource you can’t miss. Tony Schwartz explains in Harvard Business Review online why multi-tasking is self-defeating in many cases. For content managers, this couldn’t be truer.
From this article content managers will learn how to quiet the panicked voices in their heads, shut off email and chats for meetings, and respect their own time. Schwartz shares three policies and three boundaries that every content manager should memorize as mantras for more effective workflows.
7. Article: Manage Your Online Reputation
Content managers can hardly ask writers to be careful with their reputations on Google without doing it themselves. Managing online reputation has become a task that everyone must take-on in order to be a professional, and to develop name recognition. By simply using Google’s free management tools, content managers and writers can make their online presence more refined for future prospective clients who are searching.
8. Article: CopyPressed
The CopyPress blog, CopyPressed, is a fantastic resource for content managers, writers, social marketing gurus, and content curators. For those lucky writers who are selected to work on team CopyPress, there is a community of writer-specific resources and more, which content managers learn from, too.
This is a great resource because it answers any question a content manager might have over the course of a career in social media.
9. Article: Why Google+ Hangouts Is a Content Manager’s Best Friend
If you can excuse a little bad grammar, then this article will explore the benefits of Google+ Hangouts for content managers in a new light. While many people prefer Skype, email, chat, or sharing desktops for meetings, hangouts are a revolutionary step for managers who want more synergy in their workshops.
For content managers who feel disconnected from their workforce of diverse and distant writers, editors, and graphic designers, this article shares insights on getting Hangouts up and running.
10. Article: Propel Promotion of Your Content: 9 Ways I Promote Sharing Online
This piece by Jordan Kasteler is gold for any content manager who wants to help out with client promotions, or anyone who wants to learn more about promoting content. The information is invaluable for bloggers, writers, and people in social media.
11. Article: 8 Indispensable Tools to Improve Your Social Media Efficiency
From content curation to promotion, this article covers everything for novice content managers. It’s a great introduction to social content for anyone who wants an idea of the scope of social content work.
12. Article: 5 Tips & Resources for Social Media Managers
Focused on insights and analytics for social content novices and gurus, this article will teach people how to browse through what competitors are doing, how to curate content quickly for those dead Twitter days, and how to follow your own writers on various platforms to monitor their growth and span.
Conclusion
While these resources are a great starting point for content managers hungry for new information, there are always other options out there. Which sites and articles would you swear by if someone were looking for fresh information? Share your favorites in the comments!
CopyPress writer
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