Content collaboration: 5 tools to improve your workflow
Today, every business acts like a media business. To attract customers in a highly competitive market, brands are creating and sharing content more frequently and in greater volume than ever before.
As a result, no team within a company is disconnected from the content being produced. Documents, presentations, images, videos, and designs flow constantly through every company channel. Keeping track of all this content and enabling teams to collaborate in an organized and productive manner is the key to creating a superior brand experience.
What is content collaboration?
Quality content is rarely produced in a silo. Beautiful, brand-elevating content is often the outcome of writers, designers, marketers, and product managers ideating and iterating together. Content collaboration is the system — the processes and infrastructure — a business uses to access, share, and collaborate on visual and written content.
There are many different aspects that go into collaboration. To take a project from ideation to deployment, stakeholders need to get together to determine specific needs and goals, plan out a timeline, and assign people and resources to the project. They need to clearly communicate instructions to team members and be available to clarify or amend expectations as needed. They need to provide multiple rounds of feedback, and problem-solve together in the process, to ensure that the final deliverable is of the highest quality.
The collaborative process cannot succeed without communication and transparency — two essential elements that enable creatives to build off of each other’s ideas and allow stakeholders to be on the same page.
Remote collaboration in 2021 and beyond
With team members spread out across different locations, even different time zones, remote collaboration became the standard in the work-from-home era. This shift has made an already challenging process even more difficult — it hasn’t been possible for collaborators to sit in a room together and brainstorm ideas on a whiteboard, or get hardcopies of written feedback.
When important pieces of content are scattered across various platforms, effective collaboration is nearly impossible. Without a centralized, easy-to-navigate system in place, the sheer volume of content can quickly overwhelm team members and dampen productivity. In the remote era, gaps in communication can cost companies real money.
So how do you optimize your workflow in a distributed workforce? How do you ensure that your team can collaborate seamlessly on projects without important information falling through the cracks?
Your best solution is to adopt a content collaboration tool that will act as a headquarters for all of your team’s assets. This will centralize your workflow and enable team members to collaborate in one place, rather than forcing them to dig through endless email chains or DM each other for assets. A robust content collaboration system ensures that no time that could be spent creating content is wasted looking for it.
5 content collaboration tools that can streamline your workflow
Google Drive is a solid option for managing your team’s files. This easy-to-use cloud collaboration platform enables secure file storage and file sharing so that every team member can instantly access the documents they need. Additionally, collaborators can make comments and suggestions on documents and get responses in real-time.
Apart from its functionality, Google Drive’s main appeal lies in its familiarity and ubiquity — most people know what it is and how to use it. This makes adoption very easy.
Dropbox is also a cloud storage tool that takes the pain out of looking for files. With Dropbox, you can securely upload, share, and access documents from anywhere, no matter where you are or what device you’re using. This platform utilizes a freemium model with tiered per-month pricing. You can upgrade to a plan with greater storage and functionality based on your team’s needs.
Similar to Google Drive and Dropbox, Microsoft’s OneDrive is also a cloud-based content collaboration tool. It offers seamless integrations with Office 365 apps such as Word and Excel. Collaborators can easily share their files with each other, as well as add to and edit documents at the same time. In other words, OneDrive is an effective team collaboration option, especially if you already use the Microsoft Office Suite.
Confluence is an advanced all-in-one content collaboration platform developed by Atlassian. This product solves project management challenges, as stakeholders can control workflows end-to-end and use free templates to plan out projects and keep track of progress.
Features include real-time editing on shared pages, commenting, and notifications that keep teams on the same page. The platform also makes it easy to share information between the entire company with announcements and blogs. Confluence is a great option for teams looking for a more heavy-duty, all-in-one tool.
Slack is a cloud-collaboration and messaging tool that makes communicating with collaborators extremely easy. Shared channels ensure that every team member is getting important information, and private DMs enable collaborators to check in and follow up one-on-one. Users can even chat live with the "huddle" voice chat feature. Slack also supports easy document and image sharing, as well as integrations with other productivity tools such as Google Drive, Google Calendar, Dropbox, and Loom.
While Slack cannot necessarily replace the cloud-storage tools mentioned above, it is a great communication platform to add to your workflow to keep everyone looped in.
Why Air is the ultimate content collaboration platform
Air was built with seamless collaboration capabilities at its core — unlike other tools that added it as an afterthought. Designed as a content management and collaboration system for creatives, Air is a clean, intuitive workspace for your team’s visual assets.
Air centralizes all of your images and videos on the cloud, in an organized, searchable, easy-to-navigate library. No one on your team has to worry about losing files or looking through email attachments ever again. Accessing and sharing your content has never been easier — you can do it from any location and on any device. Securely share your content with team members and external collaborators using public boards, or customize permissions to password-protect boards carrying sensitive information.
Powerful collaboration features make working with your team hassle-free, even enjoyable. Conduct creative reviews by leaving comments and tagging teammates. Give and receive feedback in real time. Keep track of progress with versions. Whether you’re planning out social media posts for the next month or working on brand designs for the latest content marketing campaign, Air is the all-in-one storage and collaboration tool you need.
We’ve all heard the saying, “teamwork makes the dream work.” Make your dream a reality. Try Air for free today.
