So you have identified your product-market fit. There’s a lot of content stored… somewhere, or you just know there’s a high demand for content that has been backlogged. You personally don’t have the time to manage your content and the marketing person, well, only knows how to manage good copy. Unfortunately, you have burned through content managers like paper because they don’t show initiative and, surprisingly, don’t have the bandwidth to deal with it all. Frankly, the problem lies in the fact that no one really owns the content besides the existing leadership team.
The solution? Get yourself a Chief Content Officer to own your content. Below are some reasons for you to get a CCO instead of just managing the content yourself or having a content manager run things without the real authority, accountability, and experience required for what is needed.
Cost
If you haven’t stopped reading already because of the term “Chief Content Officer” and are actually looking to save costs by reducing high salaries, then kudos to you. Just because it’s a C-suite role, it does not mean you have to roll out “fat checks”. There is such a thing as having a part-time CCO and getting someone who is just good at what they do but doesn’t have the necessary experience in the C-suite arena per se.
Talent trumps years of pointless experience, it’s a fact. While you definitely need someone very experienced in content management to own your content, it doesn’t mean you need some old-timer board member. There are experienced content managers out there that have the potential but haven’t had the chance to promote. This is the time for a massive win-win scenario. They get the title they have been dreaming of, and you get a sigh of relief as you feel the burdens lifted from your shoulders.
Hiring content managers and marketing staff to flop around like a fish out of water will not help you save on HR costs. You will constantly be hiring, firing, and diverting resources away from your team’s primary objectives. Frequently introducing new staff will certainly harm your company. In contrast, hiring a Chief Content Officer will not only save you the time and effort, but it might also reduce expenses in the long-term while you focus on growing your top line.
Setting the tone
Dedicating someone to content shows that you mean business. You are serious about developing the best content in your market and, ultimately, have one expert take over every vital facet of your organization as you concentrate on what you need to be doing – including scaling your company.
You’re not interested in juniors, you are interested in having the best. But the resources will not always be favorable, so you will need to make a decision. Getting the right person for the job sets the right tone earlier on.
Accountability and authority
When you’re scaling, you need to reduce experimentation and start to get people settled in the right positions and have everyone and everything grow, fast. You don’t have the time to babysit and to deal with bad employee turnover. You need real leaders and industry professionals to be accountable for their respective departments. However, they also need the authority to run things while you’re working on growing the business. Once again, a content manager will NOT know what level of flexibility is available and will not be able to own the content. A Chief Content Officer is the sculptor that takes the scraps and creates the masterpiece the company needs, in terms of content at least.
The CCO develops the strategy, the content plan, manages the writers, editors, and designers. They turn everything into a content-producing machine, where everything is normalized internally, yet unique to the industry. As the leadership team, you only need to listen to the CCO’s alignment updates and provide feedback.
Does hiring a CCO mean you now have to hand them the keys to the house? No! It is completely up to you how much authority you are willing to give them in other areas of the company, but the whole point is to give them control of the “tactical station” so that they can annihilate the competition with their initiative, while others are still micromanaging their content managers.
Skills and experience
Naturally, there are Chief Content Officers and Heads of Content out there with a lot of experience. But, they could be too old school or just, putting it mildly, overrated for their remuneration. Why not look at hiring someone with all the content experience, on the border of being a CCO already, to be the Head of Content at your company? They have all the latest industry knowledge and experience, minus actually being an overpaid executive that has forgotten how to be innovative and simply knows the dialogue.
Young, but experienced, content managers know of all the latest SEO trends, social media platforms, content strategies, and tools. If a CCO or Head of Content is still having you use Hootsuite for your scheduling of social media postings, for instance, then you are in real trouble. That’s why there is absolutely no harm in taking someone skilled and giving them the title they deserve, for much cheaper, doing the things the leadership team would like to be spearheading.
Getting real
You didn’t see Captain Picard stand behind Worf at tactical all day, or for new Trekkies, Janeway taking over Ensign Kim’s duties. The captain is busy leading the entire ship, not stuck on having things done in exactly the manner in which they would like it to be done. The captain only expects a positive outcome and for goals to be accomplished so that the ship can continue its mission. So why do so many new CEOs and leadership teams expect accountability, but never provide the authority to their heads of departments?
As a CEO, you don’t have the time to manage every detail of your content. There are several other departments to look at as well, so there will never be time. It will only halt your scaling dead in its tracks if you’re looking to get everything perfect without taking some minor risks to hire experts to do what they’re best at. And yes, being a CEO doesn’t mean you know the best strategy for your content.
With these 5 reasons on why you need a CCO to own your content, as a former content executive, I can tell you that it’s probably one of the best moves you can make for your content strategy – ever. Wasting time in tossing content around between several individuals and arguing over accountability is extremely detrimental to your business, and I have seen it happen so many times. Don’t fall into the same abyss as countless others; take action by hiring an expert to own your content.