9 Collaboration Tools for a More Efficient Content Marketing Team

Anna Fox

6 years ago

Content marketing can be quite daunting – especially for marketers who have to work in a team. Working together to achieve optimal results requires team members to adjust. That means that they are usually on the lookout for various advanced tools that will make their common work easier and faster.

Content marketing can include an overwhelming amount of tasks:

Content research
Keyword research
Competitor research
Brainstorming
Expert outreach
Proofreading
Social media marketing (which may be hundreds of micro-tasks in itself)

Don’t get me started on all the trends and changes our industry is going through. Let’s just say, we all need to constantly keep up to date and be ready to adapt.

As a content marketer, I’ve been sending and responding to dozens of emails on a daily basis, writing thousands of words on a weekly basis, tweeting, engaging, researching…

Source: facts.zone

How to get more productive and organized?

Undoubtedly, there is no shortage of tools that have been designed to help content marketers to collaborate effectively. The problem, however, is picking the right tools that will best serve the purpose intended.

From ideation to execution, here are nine of the best tools that will help your content marketing team excel. (Most of the tools will hopefully be new to you as I was trying to pick less discussed, yet still awesome alternatives, provided I had at least some experience using them):

1. Coggle: Collaborative Content Structuring

Good organization is vital for a team to be able to visualize their goals and work towards them. Therefore when organizing ideas, Coggle is the best app to consider. The application helps each member of the team to upload images, diagrams, and other work-related data.

The auto-save feature (which means you do not have to worry about saving changes anytime you alter or add anything) is one reason why it’s a valuable tool.

The app is not free though, but in the end, you will realize you got your money’s worth. Coggle allows users to upload up to 3 diagrams for free while a monthly payment of $5 is needed to have access to unlimited uploads. Also, a monthly subscription fee of $8 can be paid for each user to have access to a personal workspace.

2. Cyfe: Collaborative Monitoring

Cyfe is a content marketing app that is mainly concerned with managing the analytical aspect of content marketing. It shows you the web analytics as well as the SEO of your content. Cyfe also allows you to connect to a lot of other apps. It has a free version with limited resources as well as a paid premium version.

Cyfe has a free plan which is the one I am using, but it also has an option to upgrade which you are likely to find required if you are working in a team. For $29 a month you will get access to unlimited data storage, multiple user collaboration and sharing as well as the ability to brand your dashboards with your logo.

3. Flock: Video Meetings and Chats

The Flock app is like a messaging app. However, it offers much more than most messaging apps. It allows team members to organize video meetings online as well as share various files through Google Drive.

The application has features that allow one to add and assign tasks to users as well as add a to-do list for each member. The application is free for use until it reaches a message history of about 10 thousand messages. After that, it’s $3 monthly for access to unlimited interaction.

4. Serpstat: Collaborative Keyword and Content Research

Serpstat is a keyword and content optimization tool for content marketers, which allows them to keep track of the topics of the day topping the search engine. It basically helps content marketers to have a target with a view of the top-ranking keywords.

They also have one of the most powerful collaboration tools in the industry including checklists and to-do list management which keep content teams very well-organized.

The subscription payment for the app is quite varied though as it depends on the team size and project scope.

5. Stormboard: Collaborative Brainstorming

Just like the settings of a physical brainstorming meeting, Stormboard allows each member of the team to share their ideas and contribute to opinions while others have the chance to make as many comments on it as possible.

For shy team members, anonymous decisions can be made on various subject matters to avoid stress. The app comes with a price of $5 for Startups, with business plans at $8.33 monthly. About five users can make use of it for free though.

6. Bynder: Collaborative Brand Asset Management

Bynder is another one of the most efficient tools for marketers. It allows users to create, edit, and organize brand-owned content assets including creatives, images, videos, etc.

Bynder also enables every user to communicate quite easily as well as share necessary files. It also has an auto-feature that allows it to recognize the objects in an image and even generate the necessary tags for them. This reduces workloads for users.

7. Udemy: Collaborative Training

Udemy is a learning platform for many, including marketers. It allows teams to collaborate on creating video courses for internal training as well as put together public courses for brand and income building.

With Udemy, marketers can improve their skills as well as their knowledge of the business. It also allows team leaders to have all of their presentations in a place for easy access.

The Udemy for Business Team Plan costs $240 (in USD) per team member per year. It’s not really affordable for small businesses, so I thought I’d suggest a DIY solution here. You can build your own private knowledge base using one of these plugins to avoid the yearly cost.

8. Wrike: Collaborative Task Management

When a goal is set, it is important to coordinate steps and delegate tasks. This can be done very productively with Wrike.

It allows team members to get their work organized while also understanding the overall process better. Free trial use of the app is available for users, but after a while, a subscription payment, starting at $34.60, is required.

9. Flipboard: Collaborative Content Curation

Flipboard is the leading content curation app out there. It has many possible uses including brand and authority building. One of its less obvious applications is for teams to share resources and create a collaborative online learning portal.

The platform is free: Simply create a magazine, add your team members and encourage them to add interesting resources and stories they happen to come across on a daily basis.

Bonus tool: Proprofs Project