Deconstructing our Content Teams: A Twitter Chat with the #CMWorld Community

Your content marketing will only work if you have the right people to implement it. That can mean a lot of things depending on your organization’s size. Do you work with a large team in an enterprise? Are you in a smaller shop with a handful of people? Or maybe you find yourself saying, “nope, it’s me, myself, and I!”

No matter how our teams are structured, we’re all looking to do one thing. We want to fulfill our customers’ needs with engaging, authentic content.

On this week’s #CMWorld Twitter chat, our community told us about their experiences. We found that despite our differences, the lessons we have learned can help set all of our efforts up for success.

We touched upon questions, like:

• How many people are part of your content marketing team? (Spoiler alert: Answers ranged from one person to as many as 30.)
• Do team structures differ from enterprises to small business to startups?
• How do businesses determine who owns content marketing? Who currently heads it at your organization?

What follows is a fraction of the conversation that took place on Twitter. We couldn’t keep up with the tweets because the chat moved quick. We read many insightful responses, more than we could include here. So, we’ve put together two Twitter Moments with every question and answer. We encourage you to take a look. (Twitter Moment – Part 1 and Twitter Moment – Part 2)

What content marketing practices for enterprise teams can work well for small teams? Conversely, what lessons on content teams can small business marketers teach established brand marketers?

A5: Great question, and we have experience in both, so we think about this a lot. Enterprise seem to better understand being very strategic and having a well-drafted plan. Small biz seem to be better at agility and responsiveness and showing authenticity. #CMWorld

— Lane Anderson (@Lane_Anderson) April 23, 2019

A5: It’s all about communication. No matter what size your team is, you need to be able to talk to each other, share ideas, give and take feedback, etc. #CMWorld

— Express Writers (@ExpWriters) April 23, 2019

A5: I feel it still starts with a solid strategy and goals that focus on the knowing what your customer or audience really wants. Content is for them and not you…applies to both small and large organizations #CMWorld

— Bernie Fussenegger #Digital360Chat 🐝✌️the7️⃣ (@B2the7) April 23, 2019

A5. Process is really important regardless of size. Sometimes smaller teams might overlook the importance of having processes in place and then things fall through cracks or they experience growing pains then the teams inevitably/hopefully grows #CMWorld

— PathFactory (@pathfactory) April 23, 2019

Do you see the anatomy of content teams changing in the future?

I think the strategic role of content in an organization may determine if and where change is needed. Didn’t @Robert_Rose talk about content being more than a “vending machine” recently? A7 #CMWorld

— Roselle Cronan (@MahoutMkt) April 23, 2019

A7: Yes. Change is inevitable. As @JeffBezos says it’s dangerous not to evolve. Channels emerge/change, audience behavior changes. We must always adapt to it. #cmworld

— Amanda Todorovich (@amandatodo) April 23, 2019

A7: I’d say more automation is likely and will certainly change up the anatomy of teams. Machines will do their best to replicate human-generated content, so it’ll be interesting to see where this heads! #CMWorld

— Devin 📈 (@Devin_Pickell) April 23, 2019

A7: #CMWorld

I don’t expect there’ll be a major change in how content teams operate in the near future. It’s always been a balance of, until you have the capital to hire specialized roles, you wear multiple hats and get the job done.

— Click Control Marketing (@ClkContrl) April 23, 2019

A7: Yes. I think research and content teams will work more closely and possibly even merge as we move towards more data-driven and focused content. Creating in-house agencies is also a hot trend to keep an eye on! #CMWorld pic.twitter.com/PVbbppJ3HO

— Lauren Ashley (@G2Lauren) April 23, 2019

Thanks to our community for joining in this week’s chat and sharing information about your own teams! How are your teams evolving? Let’s continue the conversation; let us know in the comments below.

A team that learns together stays together. What better place to do that than Content Marketing World? Ask us about our group rates!