Comms Nugget 3: Building a Content Repository

One of the most important things in a social sector organization is content development. It is perhaps the 2nd most important thing after programmatic implementation because it is on the wings of good content that one can build narratives, tell stories and build organizational visibility that goes on to facilitate business development, pave the way for policy and build an organizational following. Here are my few ideas of how to build a content repository in an organization.

1: A content repository can take on many forms

It is important to understand what a content repository is. A lot of communication people I have spoken to term content repository as what they post on social media and that is far far far away from the actual meaning. A content repository is essentially a knowledge bank for the organization and covers everything from videos, visuals, photographic content, white papers, research articles, reports, media pieces, thought pieces/editorials/features and everything in between. As a small communication team it often becomes immensely difficult to control all the content that is being churned out in the organization on a daily basis. One of the practices I used to follow was to create an open drive for the organization where everyone would just dump in pieces that they were working on for external audiences. As a communicator my job was to then look at the relevant pieces and then pull out information from there and refurbish as needed. Doing this gives you an overview of everything that's been going on in the organization, helps you build in-depth knowledge about the work ( if you have the patience, bandwidth and time to read through pieces) and helps you mix and match content from various pieces for something you are putting together for any channel.

2. Map your content

As a communicator we often have to deal with multiple channels through which content is being disseminated- be it social media handles, website, media, donor proposals, reports, newsletters etc. It is a good practice to draw up a mind map to have an overview of which content is being disseminated for an external audience, through which channel and at which frequency. This helps decide which piece of content is needed for what purpose at the beginning of the month and then one can spend some time on deciding how to lay out the content than decide ad-hoc when the need comes up. It's also good practice to update this content map every 2 months or so because some content is time-relevant and some stay on for a bit. Looking at the content map gives one an understanding of where content is lagging or what needs to be updated ( for eg: impact numbers of a particular project) than rushing at the last minute.

3. Content calendars

Content calendars are an extension of content mapping. I find it extremely useful to lay out my content for the month at the beginning of the month or the end of the last month. This helps me also put a thematic angle to the content than just putting out whatever content comes my way at that point of time. Thematic content can be broken down according to something important happening that month or something that you decide with your team to focus on, syncing it with organizational priorities. For example in my current role working on malnutrition, Poshan Maah ( or National Nutrition Month) is held in September every year. While as a part of my job I have a regular content calendar to follow, I know that during September all my content will be aligned to focus on Poshan Maah so that its aligned to a national campaign and thus has more relevance to what is happening in the sector at that point of time than posting what I think is important only for my organization. Syncing content to a larger umbrella ( national campaign, specific days etc.) also helps build partnerships with organizations focussing on the same thing and thus opens up the space for collaboration.

4. Everything is content

This is true. Everything is content if you know how to play with it. Most communicators have to regularly deal with field teams who support on-ground operations. I keep telling my field teams to keep sending me photographs, thoughts, small videos of anything they are doing on the field because what they do as mundane work on the field makes for fantastic content for an audience that is always not familiar with what NGOs do. These nuggets of content also work fantastically for donor communication and rapport building. Just showing a partner a small case study from the field during an offline conversation goes a long way in strengthening these relationships even further. I use a Whatsapp group for my field team where all they need to do is just dump their content in whatever form they have captured it and it is then the job of my team and I to break that down and make it usable for ourselves.

5. Break down content

As communicators and marketing people one of the constant fights I have had in all my roles is the one with Programs- where they will give us technical heavy content which makes zero sense for a lay audience. It is absolutely imperative for communicators to know how to break content down into language that is easly discernable by an external audience. I follow a simple rule- if an 18 year old kid cannot understand the language I am putting out, that content is not upto standards. Of course this is different for technical pieces and white papers and research papers etc. But as a communicator we largely deal with content that can be used for marketing purposes- reports, social media, website, media stories etc. And that content HAS to be easily understood. I respect the knowledge that my colleagues in Programs has with respect to their areas of work but they dont think in the marketing language- it's not their job to do so either. That is our job. So to take a phrase like the "hydrological regime of rivers" and break it down into a simpler phrase that someone who doesnt work in water is our job, not theirs. Taking complex content like a qualitative study on diets in communities and laying out the main findings in a single infographic with visuals and images makes that content far more appealing and digestible for a donor than sending them the a 200 page report which they will never read.

6. Play with content

One of the things that I have learnt in the sector is that there is always a paucity of content. Rich programmatic content comes from your colleagues in Programs and most of them never have time to sit down and write a piece for you. So, going back to pt. 1 of a content repository, it is an easy task to then pull out a piece of content and mix it up to make it amenable for dfferent audiences. A simple instance of this is The Living Planet Report that WWF published bi-annually. It was a beautiful technical and super information-heavy report but as a communicator, it was a pure gold field of content that could be used in so many ways. So while there was a Press Release announcing the top findings of the report globally, we used to put together an India fact sheet (with information gleaned from the report and secondary research) for the media so that it was contextual and relevant. Some parts of the report would become wonderful infographics that would go onto our social media handles and some parts of it would find their way into related donor proposals and reports. Even for the media, there would be some pieces for journalists who would want to dig deeper and some data and top line research numbers woud be gleaned out from there for them specifically. The report also gave us some startlng facts and numbers that would then be quoted in various communication pieces like Annual Reports, donor newsletters and even CEO letters to stakeholders.

7. Target your content

Last but not the least target your content. When you map your content and your channels you get a clear idea of who is the recipient of which piece of content and therefore there is an absolute need to write your content likewise. A simple case study from the field can be used in a completely different way for donor reports vis-a-vis social media handles vis-a-vis large funding proposals and so on and so forth. Even for social media in itself, a piece of content needs to be laid out differently for people on LinkedIn vs those on Facebook vs those on X or on Insta because the purpose of the channels and the audiences on those channels is extremely different. One fun thing to remember and use perhaps also is that a CEO of a company might be on all 4 channels of social and following you on all 4. However what is important to realise is how he uses these channels- he probably looks at LinkedIn during office hours or on his commute to and from office and he is still in the headspace of work and therefore looking at your case study might ignite a spark of a partnership with your organization. On the other hand he probably uses Facebook to keep in touch with family and Instagram to deadscroll at night to wind down and X to check the news and headlines in the morning. So drafting the same content differently for different channels is appealing to different parts of his brain at different times of the day or night. Of course this is an assumption and might not hold true for all CEOs but that's how targetted consumer marketing works. Putting out a case study to seek partnerships on Instagram might not be a good idea, However putting out a photo story of the same case study on Insta makes for a great visual post and eggs people on to engage with what you are saying.

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