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How To Manage Leaders Out of Your Content Approval Process

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How To Manage Leaders Out of Your Content Approval Process

You’ve heard the term “managing up.” But do you know what it means?

Some articles, like this one from The Wall Street Journal, say managing up is “all about making your boss’s job easier.” That sounds nice, but really? Is that what’s going on here?

Others, like this one from Harvard Business Review, define managing up as “being the most effective employee you can be, creating value for your boss and your company.”

Have any of these people ever tried to manage up? So many of these definitions start with the assumption that the boss is always right. You just need to find out what makes them tick to earn their trust – then all will be right in the world.

I’ll pause while you laugh.

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In a healthy system, managing up is about developing an approach to creating deeper trust with your supervisor. Remember, trust is a “confident relationship to the unknown,” as Rachel Botsman, a renowned expert on the topic, defines it.

So, I think managing up involves helping your leaders navigate the risk of uncertainty.

That means when you believe they’re wrong, you tell them so.

Instead of managing up, though, many people simply “manage around.” They change strategies, goals, processes, and projects to manage around the idiosyncrasies of a particular boss.

Managing around frequently happens in marketing and content. Why? It may have something to do with that old trope, usually attributed to Hewlett Packard co-founder David Packard, that “marketing is too important to leave to the marketing department.”

This sentiment has caused many marketing practitioners to lament that people throughout the business think they have two jobs – their own and marketing. It seems everyone has an opinion on where the marketing and content strategy is going astray.

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And when those opinions come from the boss, many people change processes to “manage around” them.

Everyone has an opinion on what’s wrong with your #ContentStrategy. When the opinions come from biz leaders, manage up rather than managing around, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

The toughest problem: managing around your leaders

Last month I worked with a content team at a mid-sized tech company that faced a difficult challenge. Everything the team created had to go through the CEO for approval. Everything.

But that wasn’t the biggest problem.

When reviewing the assets, the CEO frequently changed campaign direction or introduced last-minute design, creative, or even strategy changes. At any given moment, priorities, timing, or entire marketing campaigns could be upended.

But, if you can believe it, even this wasn’t the biggest problem.

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The biggest problem arose from the way the marketing and content team adapted their processes to manage around the CEO. Instead of brainstorming ideas for great content or marketing campaigns, they simply created output that they knew the CEO would approve.

This approach let them deliver within the set timelines, and the CEO felt happier with the output and timing. But the content marketing team felt demoralized.

If you think of managing up as “all about making your boss’s job easier,” you could argue they’d done it. But they certainly weren’t making the company more successful, adding value, or helping their boss navigate the risk of uncertainty.

How could the team feel any confidence in their work when they’d designed it to pass through a flawed approval process?

How can a #Content team believe in their work if it was designed only to pass a flawed-approval process, asks @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

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How to stop managing around and start managing up

There are only two ways to solve the challenge of managing around the boss.

1. Acknowledge and accept it

The first option is to acknowledge that you’re managing around an executive and build in the expectation that the exec’s word is final.

Sometimes, detailed input from a visionary business leader does add value ­– Steve Jobs’ contributions at Apple come to mind. That creative and design management style worked for Apple because the entire business accepted and expected that projects would end up the way he wanted them.

If you want or need to design an approval process where the CEO or other senior leader may edit, change, or upend entire projects, try to move their input closer to the beginning of the project lifecycle to mitigate creative and design rework.

Make sure everyone understands that the process was built to accommodate specific, required input from that leader. This way, you remove contradictory or false expectations about timelines and results. You can then give your team permission to push boundaries while acknowledging that the final product may end up the way the boss wants it.

If you must design a #Content approval process around a visionary leader (a la Steve Jobs), make sure everyone understands who has the final word, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

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2. Invite consultation, not final approval

The second way to solve the challenge of managing around the boss is to stop doing it. In other words, confront any false expectations that resulted from the “managing around” approach.

At the tech company I mentioned, the CEO became accustomed to contributing to and approving the marketing output when the company was much smaller. As the company grew, the process remained unchanged. Approving marketing work became a task the CEO had to do, but not one he felt was a core part of his role.

He needed someone to manage up and tell him the process no longer fit. They no longer needed his input and approval on every content or marketing project.

So, they changed the process to give the CEO visibility into every stage of content, campaigns, and other initiatives. He can check in on and comment on ideas. He can view and comment on projects as design concepts. And he can contribute new ideas at the ideation stage.

If you think of this solution in RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) terms, the CEO gets consulted and informed at every stage of the content lifecycle. But he’s no longer responsible for the final approval of content or campaigns.

With the new system in place, he inserted himself into the marketing process less frequently. This change allowed the marketing team to understand and weigh the implications of changes at each content stage. It also freed the content team from needing to design around the CEO’s idiosyncrasies without ignoring his input.

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HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How To Survive Content by Committee

Make content matter

Business management guru Peter Drucker once wrote, “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”

Managing up is helping your boss understand the things that don’t need doing.

Get Robert’s take on content marketing industry news in just three minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute




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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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