Leverage Enterprise Search Software to Improve Content Management
Content Management Best Practices
Cloud repositories, data lakes, document storage, instant messaging, emails, and document storage all add up to be terabytes of data, thousands of folders and storage locations, and thousands upon thousands of files. At best, they all resides in a few locations and are governed by Document Management best practices. At worst it is a digital sprawl with no clear ownership, access control, or management and storage best practices. And regardless of what end of the spectrum, employees are sure to have frustration about information access and control.
Document sprawl drives inaccessibility throughout organizations and decreases the ability to find timely, accurate, and actionable information. To combat digital document sprawl and the chaos of cloud storage solutions, Content Management software and data governance policies are frequently leveraged. This can range from single .PDFs that are distributed to everyone and reviewed once a year to a full center of excellence to ensure data gets into the right hands. Regardless of scale, document management best practices should ensure that people can find the right information in a timely fashion. Here are some ways to ensure your team is setup for success with the right information:
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Define Information Categories: Clearly defined information buckets and tiers allow the right people to have access to the right information. A great example is that customer facing teams will all likely need access to customer information from the CRM or Customer Success Software. Drive continuity of knowledge across your customer journey.
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Plan Content Strategy: Marketing teams develop a content marketing strategy - take the same approach internally to understand the locations, content type, and overall need for various content types like .PDFs vs. video. An internal content strategy will ensure videos can be accessible throughout the organization - a great example of which is training videos can be housed in a learning management solution.
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Implement Workflows: Workflows tend to require approvals or other gatekeepers - while this is good for large organizations with clear guidelines and boundaries from a marketing or brand perspective, it is just as important in smaller businesses. Build in checks and balances across teams so that engineering, sales, marketing, are all aligned in language, vernacular and information.
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Use Metadata: Use metadata to classify, organize, and describe your content, making it easier to find and use. Metadata also enables more robust Enterprise Search Solutions to assist everyone in finding the right information.
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Regularly Review and Update: Regularly review and update content to ensure that it is accurate, relevant, and up-to-date. Out-of-date information can be a pain to sift through and slow down the time-to-act on data and information. It is imperative that stales or outdated documents are archived or removed from access.
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Collaborate with Teams: Collaborate with other teams, such as marketing, sales, and customer service, to ensure that content is aligned with their needs and goals. By understand the mechanisms and methodology for cross-functional collaboration, document management best practices can be established. This supplements organization efforts to provide a great employee digital experience.
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Measure and Analyze: Measure the success of your content by tracking metrics such as page views, engagement, and conversions. Use this information to improve your content strategy and ensure that it is effective and impactful. The metrics and data for this can also be captured in employee survey's or other soft-metric acquisition channels. Employee sentiment about document and information accessibility is a good litmus test for the impact of document management programs.
While document management is not a one-size-fits-all approach, any organization can begin with an introspective look of current processes, data locations, and overall data landscape. Understand where and how people use existing systems to understand whether improvements to process or technology is a good starting point. Ask questions about how people share documents - is it through a native document host like Google Drive or Sharepoint or do emails contain all sorts of hyperlinks and references to a cloud repository? By understanding the present and having a clear picture of future-state, document management can become a high-value, low-touch investment to drive more productive and happier employees.
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