Definition: Content governance

Content governance is managing and controlling content to ensure it's consistently high quality, on-brand, and aligned with an organization's goals and guidelines.

It's the set of guidelines that determines how an organization’s content gets created and published.

There are a few reasons why content governance is essential for all organizations that create content.

An effective content governance strategy can bring your business greater levels of consistency, efficiency, and quality regarding its content creation:

• Consistency: Having a central set of content production guidelines means that content remains consistent across teams and channels.
• Efficiency: Understanding the content lifecycle allows content teams to see opportunities to streamline.
• Quality: Writers have access to documents such as editorial guidelines and messaging frameworks.

Content governance can also help organizations resolve — or even avoid — potential issues arising in their content production process.

For example, it helps put the right protocols in place so that everyone understands:

• The best process for approving new content
• Which content should be based on a template
• How and when to review old content for relevance
• The correct metrics and KPIs for measuring success
• That editorial guidelines exist and should be followed