Content is often not created by just one person. Sometimes more or less large teams take care of it. But how can larger teams smoothly create content together and also publish it on different channels without errors occurring in the process? One possibility is content creation and distribution via content marketing tools. In this article, we’ll show you which functions such tools should definitely cover so that you can easily create and publish content in a team.
Create and publish content – Download the overview of important features of content marketing tools
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Create content – functions for content writing
After the topic research and content planning, it’s time for the actual content writing. And that’s more or less effort – at least if it’s not just a graphic with little text. To help your team create content as smoothly as possible, content marketing tools should provide some features around copywriting.
Integrated SEO and readability
An enormously important function is the integrated SEO check. SEO tools are of course also available separately (you can find an overview of SEO tools here). However, it is advantageous if the SEO check takes place directly within the content marketing tool in which the content is also written. You can imagine: A directly embedded SEO check reduces the effort of copywriting, because your texts do not have to be transferred to a separate tool, adjusted and transferred back again.
By the way, it is just equally helpful to directly check the readability of your texts. While you are writing, you can optimize your texts in one step. In the course of the readability check, additional features such as a filler word check, modal verb check and a check of your texts for impersonal addresses as well as grammatical errors and spelling can also be useful. All of these features ultimately pay off in the user-friendliness of your content.
In our market overview of content marketing tools, we therefore asked about these features, among others. The result: More than half of the providers have already integrated the SEO check into their solution. It is the same with the readability check. However, the coverage of further functions such as the filler word check is not yet pronounced. Only a few content marketing tools offer these features.
SEO functions in detail
In order to create good content, search engine optimization is just as elementary as the actual content. Only through SEO your content can be found by users. Therefore, we have taken a closer look at SEO functions in particular and looked at which features are provided by the content marketing tools. These include functions such as the meta tag preview, the check of the URL for SEO factors and the check of the keyword weight as well as a duplicate content check. You can see which other SEO functions we looked at and which features the providers have integrated into their solutions in our overview of the functions for content creation and distribution, which you can download in this article.
Everything coordinated? Workflow features matter
In the course of content creation, it is also important to proceed step by step and to coordinate the content. Not all responsible persons in the company always sit in the same room or have their offices in the same corridor. In times of remote work and flexible working hours, it is therefore becoming increasingly essential to be able to map detailed coordination workflows within the company. This is the only way to ensure that information is passed on seamlessly and that content creation continues to be a multi-eye process. Our content marketing tool comparison therefore asks to what extent the solution providers have integrated workflow functions. For us, the central features in the content marketing process include:
- an approval workflow to ensure the quality of the content
- integrated task management to assign content creation tasks to other team members and clarify responsibilities
- a chat function to speed up the coordination process (alternatively, a coordination function via comments)
- the possibility of granting employees various rights in relation to content creation
Almost all of the providers in our market overview offer an approval workflow in their tools. Half of the solutions include integrated task management and a chat function for coordination processes. Rights management is possible in eight out of 15 tools.
Keeping the overview: Content editor, preview function and revision history
Information is needed throughout the content marketing process. For example, who last reviewed and/or changed content. A revision history helps you keep track of this. However, it is not yet a standard feature and is only offered by six of the 15 content marketing tools in our comparison. The situation is different with the content editor and the preview function. In the editor, you get an overview of your respective content – text, already inserted images, links, etc. The preview function shows you your content as it would look like when published. Both functions are good for creating appealing and correct content. And they are offered accordingly in all content marketing tools.
Publish content – focus on interfaces
The content on various topics has been created. Now it’s time to publish the content on different channels. In your content strategy, you should have already determined which channels are important for your customers and on which channels you should publish content. As a rule, you make content available on your website or even on a separate corporate blog. But you should keep social media in mind. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok – there are numerous potential distribution channels that come into consideration. To avoid having to repackage the post for each channel and prepare it for publication, content marketing tools should have interfaces that make distribution to the various channels as easy as possible.
We asked the tool providers to which distribution channels they provide interfaces within their solutions. A pleasing aspect is that ten out of 15 solution providers provide interfaces to popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Connections to other content management systems (CMS) are also possible with most of the tools. Six solutions also enable linking to e-mail marketing tools. You can find detailed information about the interfaces in the excerpt that you can download at the beginning of this article.
Conclusion: Extensive functions for creating and publishing content
Content marketing tools provide you with many features to publish your content easily, quickly and with smooth coordination processes. It is important that you create a requirements catalog in advance of the tool selection, in which you record the most important functions that your future tool should offer. This applies especially with regard to the existing interfaces, but also to SEO functions. The overview provides you with initial assistance in selecting your content marketing tool.
