Content development and distribution

General content development workflow

For most individual pieces of content (or content series), the development process will be as follows. Note that all posts will require some amount of customization depending on the audience, topic, and purpose of the content.

Content development and distribution is tracked in our Editorial Calendar in Asana.

Activities	Owner
Planning
Post concept is developed/approved by Editorial team	Ashley/Jason
Post concept is developed/approved by technical lead	R&D
Preliminary deadline/timeline set	Ashley
Drafting
Post is outlined/drafted by author	Post Author/Ashley
If graphics are required, they should be commissioned/collected during this phase	Ashley/Justin
Review
Technical posts: Fact-checked	Jason B., R&D leadership team
Partner Content: Sent to collaborators for review	Relationship owner (Aaron, Jason, Ashley, etc.)
All Content: Post is proofread and optimized for SEO	Ashley/Justin
Distribution Checklist is added to post draft	Ashley/Justin
Scheduling
Finalized post & graphics uploaded to WordPress	Justin
Social posts are uploaded to HootSuite	Justin
Additional distribution collateral/messaging finalized	Ashley/Jason B.
Distribution (See Distribution Checklist for complete activities)
Send internal, collaborator & community notifications	Ashley/Jason B.
Submit link to appropriate channels (e.g. Reddit, HN)	Ashley/Jason B./Author
Post to self-submission syndication channels (e.g. Opensource.com, Dev.to)	Ashley/Jason B./Author
Add to nurture campaigns	Ashley/Ty/TBD
Performance Evaluation
Review performance at next monthly review cycle (Content Strategy Mtg)	Ashley/Jason
Queue additional social reposts/resubmit to syndication channels as needed	Ashley/Justin

Product content workflows

There are several kinds of recurring content coming from the Product team. These have their own creation & launch processes:

Monthly product releases

Every month the product team drafts a release announcement for alternating product and quality releases. Blog post copy and any relevant screenshots, images, or videos should are shared with the Editorial team ahead of the 16th of every month.

Blog Posts

These posts skip ahead to the Proofread & Distribution Prep stages of content creation and should be scheduled as close as possible to the 16th.

Monthly Newsletter

Using the release copy as a template, the Editorial team [Justin] will draft copy for the monthly email newsletter. This copy is passed to the Marketing Ops owner [TBD] to upload into Marketo for sending. A test email is sent to Justin & Ashley for final approval before the email is scheduled.

Integration releases

Integrations and plugins are not released in cadence with other product releases, but are often critically important to the adoption of Mattermost by users.

Spotlight/round-Up plugin blog post

In order to highlight releases, we’ll do an additional integration release announcement between product releases (the first of the month or closest business day). About two weeks ahead of launch date (or earlier), Aaron R. will flag plugins that will be highlighted in the next integrations launch.

These posts can be focused around a single “spotlight” feature or compile multiple new/existing plugins that fit a specific theme. Content will be repurposed for an email sendout to subscribers that will follow the same workflow as the Monthly Newsletter.

Ex.) Jitsi Launch: Compile the 3 posts about Jitsi (technical, thought leadership, feature spotlight) into a single roundup highlighting this new plugin.

Ex.) CI/CD Plugins: To highlight the new Nimbella plugin, surface several other popular CI/CD plugins and write about how they can be leveraged separately or together.

R&D demos

Weekly feature demos given during the weekly R&D meeting (Thursday) are edited and repurposed to be posted on YouTube and shared on our social media channels the following Tuesday. Each demo will yield several 2-3 minute demo clips.

Branding and workflow TBD.

Distribution checklist

Every new piece of content developed and launched by Mattermost will require some amount of distribution to ensure that it reaches its intended audience. While every content launch will require some degree of customization, most will adhere to the following process.

Social launch

• Post link on social channels. Social content queueing is handling via Hootsuite. Social posts should include an image, link, and hashtags.

  • All content: Twitter

  • Recruiting and Buyer persona content: Twitter, LinkedIn

  • Company updates and big news: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

Internal/collaborator notifications

• Send thank you note to collaborators with link to Tweet to share

• Share internally/with community with link to Tweet to share

• For sales collateral:

  • Share additional collateral with sales/CSM/support teams

  • Case study/use case slides with quotes & talking points

Link sharing

• Post link on Hacker News

• Post link on subreddits. The following are subreddits that we have shared content on in the past. Please review subreddit-specific posting requirements BEFORE posting any content.

  • /r/Mattermost

  • /r/opensource

  • /r/golang

  • /r/reactjs

  • /r/kubernetes

Syndication

• Repost to syndication channels

  • Dev.to

  • HackerNoon

  • DZone

  • Opensource.com

  • Github Readme Project

  • Glassdoor.com

Additional activities

• Add to Mattermost nurture campaigns

• Submit links to 3rd party mailing lists, such as Pointer.io

Distribution template

During the Review phase of content creation, a copy of the Distribution Template will be added to the Draft. The Editorial team will use this template to draft social copy and develop a distribution plan for that individual post.

Distribution Template [for Editorial Team use]
Social Posts	Draft copy for 3 social posts here, including hashtags
Artwork/Graphics	Link to social & post art or graphics here
Internal & collaborator messaging	Draft internal messaging here
3rd party forums & roundups	What link sharing sites/forums/email lists should this post be posted to?
3rd party syndication	What communities should this post be submitted to?
Other campaigns	Should this post be added to existing nurture campaigns?

For a copyable template and examples of this Distribution template, visit this Google Doc.