CEO Advice Resources

Learn the Basics of Content Management (and Key Terms to Master It)

Learn the Basics of Content Management (and the Key Terms to Master It)

Do you know the essentials of content management and how it can boost your business’ visibility?

“Content is king”. I think we come across this golden quote by Bill Gates every single day. And while he said it all the way back in 1996, it’s as relevant as ever. High quality, professional, engaging and properly branded content (and on the ball content management) is crucial to building any brand today – especially in fashion.

So What Exactly Is Content Management?

Content management is the process of collecting, managing and publishing the content you create to promote your brand and add value to your target audiences. This includes anything from sharing articles on Medium to optimizing YouTube videos with proper keyword coverage to get in front of a sizable group of the people in your market.

Your content management and production team will help you create, promote and manage your content so that it adds value to your target audiences and that it gets seen by as many people in your target audiences as possible.
The copywriter will craft high quality copy (a.k.a. text) in the form of anything from your website content to blogposts, placed articles, case studies or white papers. While content management tasks consist of taking this content and putting it to use by sharing it on social media, engaging with those who respond, scheduling blogposts, prepping posts as per best SEO practices, planning content to be written, creating and maintaining your editorial calendar and more. Finally, the photographer will shoot and edit all of the gorgeous images you need for use in your social media accounts such as Instagram and Pinterest, your lookbooks and seasonal campaigns, product shots for e-commerce and/or catalogs, editorial images and other must-have imagery.

As you scale up, you’ll definitely need to think about expanding your content production team with a copywriter, content manager and photographer. These are all trained professionals with their own languages and lingo that you’re going to have to learn if you want to be able to engage, interview or hire them.

There are tons of special words and phrases in the fields of copywriting, content management and photography, but our brief glossary of terms will give you the essential terms you need to know.

Glossary of Terms

Advertorial: a newspaper or magazine ad sharing highlights about a product that is written in the style of a news or editorial article.
Blog: a web page or website featuring written content in an informal or conversational style that is updated on a regular basis.
Blogpost: an individual entry in a blog.
BTS: BTS stands for behind-the-scenes and refers to anything that occurs behind the scenes of photo and video shoots as well as any images taken on these sets that are not a part of the actual shoot.
Call Time: the time someone needs to arrive to a photoshoot set.
Case Study: analyzing real events or occasions in business to illustrate the efficacy of business principles or practices and establish the brand as an authority.
CMS: CMS stands for content management system and refers to the software platform you use to share content such as copy, photos and videos.
Copy: written text.
Copywriting: writing text for advertising or other forms of marketing.
E-Book: a digital book typically created to serve as a marketing tool offering valuable resources.
Editing: changing copy in some way such as to improve it to read better, to streamline text, the reduce word count, to remove extraneous words, to resolve grammatical and syntax errors, et al.
Editorial: high quality, creative images designed to be used in publications such as magazines.
Email Copywriting: written text to be featured in email marketing campaigns.
Fact-Check: the act of double-checking information contained in a piece of content to ensure it is both up-to-date and accurate.
GIF: a file format that can be used for images that are either still or animated.
JPEG: a common file format for photos, also JPG.
Lookbook: a set of images showing detailed looks of every garment in a collection to be used for marketing and selling, such as introducing the products to store buyers.
Mood Board: Images brought together to share the inspiration, mood and direction of an upcoming photoshoot.
MUA: MUA stands for makeup artist. You’ll likely need to hire a freelance MUA and hairstylist whenever you have a shoot featuring models.
Newsletter: an electronic or paper edition of content arriving in regular intervals (i.e. monthly or weekly) containing valuable company news, product information and more.
Photog: a shortened word for “photographer”.
Product Description: text providing website visitors with all of the necessary details about an SKU such as features, characteristics, colors and fit.
Proofreading: reading content to identify any errors.
SEO: SEO stands for search engine optimization is the process of preparing content to be shared in a manner that will bring more traffic to your website.
Sponsored Article: an article that appears in a publication or blog but is paid for by the featured company and is identifiable by an appropriate disclaimer.
Target Market: individuals and groups of people a piece of content has been created for.
White Paper: a valuable educational tool that simultaneously informs readers, markets a business and establishes authority.
Wrap Time: the time a photoshoot is expected to come to an end.

How many of these terms did you already know? The more you understand about content management, the better equipped you’ll be when it comes to hiring these professionals and communicating and approving all of your different content management initiatives and strategies.

And of course, you don’t have to go it alone. How do we help brands? Our clients turn to Scaling Retail for content strategy development and holistic marketing execution. What are your current content needs? Get in touch and schedule a consultation session today.