Content Collaboration Software

As businesses continue to become more digitally inclined — producing, accessing, and sharing content has become standard practice. Many small businesses rely on email and spreadsheets to access, share and manage content; however, they have their downsides. They don't allow employees to collaborate on the same document, leading to lost productivity and wasted time.

Content collaboration software helps businesses fill this gap, improve productivity, and save time by creating an environment where teams can easily collaborate on all types of enterprise content. With this software, employees can easily upload, access, share, and manage content from one centralized location.

In this buyers guide, we will discuss everything about content collaboration software (from basics to the common features, benefits, key factors, and market trends) so that you can make the right purchase decision about the software for your organization’s needs.

Here's what we'll cover:

• What is content collaboration software?
• Common features of content collaboration software
• What type of buyer are you?
• Benefits of content collaboration software
• Key considerations for purchasing content collaboration software
• Market trends to understand

What is content collaboration software?

Content collaboration software enables creating, sharing, distributing, and managing enterprise content within the organization in real time, facilitating enhanced productivity and better team collaboration. Not only does a content collaboration tool allow businesses to store and distribute content, but it also helps them automate and streamline workflows by enabling teams to share and manage all types of content easily.

The most significant advantage of using a content collaboration solution is that it allows team members to produce and manage content collectively. The software typically includes collaboration tools, content library, file sharing, enterprise content management, document management, data synchronization, mobile access, etc.

Upload, sync, edit, manage, and share option in OneDrive (source)

Common features of content collaboration software

Choosing a solution that can fulfill all your content collaboration needs can be quite intimidating, especially when you have so many options to choose from. We list the most common features of a content collaboration platform so that you know what to look for when selecting one.

Collaboration tools	Enable you to collaborate on the same content in real time. This ensures everyone is on the same page when working on a project, thus helping you save time.
Content library	Helps you store and share files easily and allows you to access all the content from a single location. It's a repository of all the content that is being worked on by the team.
File sharing	Allows you to share all types of content with others in the organization. It is helpful in effective collaboration on content projects as it enables users to share files quickly and easily.
Enterprise content management	Helps you keep content organized in one place, making it easy for everyone to find the right files and folders. This feature also ensures that only authorized users can access the content.
Data synchronization	Ensures that all the changes made in the documents are synchronized and reflected in real time. This allows for ease in collaboration and reduces the risk of losing data.
Mobile access	Helps you access and collaborate on content anytime, anywhere from your mobile device. This is useful for those who need to work on a document collaboration while they are on the go.
Reporting/analytics	Helps you understand how your content is being used, who is accessing it, sharing it, etc. This helps you make better decisions about your content and its distribution.

What type of buyer are you?

Before you consider your content collaboration software options, it's better to know what type of buyer you are so that you can make an informed decision while selecting the software.

• Businesses: Companies of any size need tools that can help them collaborate on enterprise content in real time. For instance, through this software, project managers can mitigate the risk of on-time failure, reduce wasted effort, and get more organized with the team. Depending on their size, businesses require varying features and functionalities when choosing content collaboration software.
• For any small business, basic features such as collaboration tools, content library, content management, file sharing, and data sync are enough to meet simple content collaboration needs. On the other hand, large companies need to fulfill extensive and complex content collaboration needs. Therefore, they demand a tool with advanced features, including multiple project management, task planning/scheduling, integrations, two-factor authentication, progress tracking, etc.
• Freelancers: Anyone who works independently either with a single client or multiple clients falls into this category of buyers. Because freelancers do not work from the client's offices, real-time collaboration, discussion, and reiteration of content become an integral part of their work. Content collaboration software can help them exchange ideas and feedback with their clients in a collaborative environment in real time. This allows them to organize, collaborate, plan, and deliver content more effectively.
• Influencers: These types of buyers are typically found on social media platforms. They are regular content creators and require advanced features to handle their content needs effortlessly. Content collaboration software can be a powerful tool for influencers, which can help them collaborate with other influencers and even audiences, resulting in better, rich, and quality content creation.

Benefits of content collaboration software

Content collaboration software has endless benefits, making it easier for employees to work together on the same document in real time. Here is what you can expect an ideal content collaboration software to do:

• Facilitate collaboration: Content collaboration software provides a shared online space, making it easier for team members to contribute content pieces or updates while others review them simultaneously. The software allows employees to track changes, make comments, and work together on a document in real time. This improves the overall quality, efficiency, and accuracy of the content.
• Embrace team growth: Sharing knowledge and information can help promote team growth. Content collaboration software helps companies with knowledge management, enabling teams to share information faster and easier. This allows employees to learn together and grow as a team.
• Protect data: Many content collaboration software have a robust password management system that helps businesses safeguard their content through firewalls and other effective mechanisms. For instance, encryption is the most common method used in content collaboration software that ensures data will be unreadable until decrypted back into its original form.
• Reduce complexity: By allowing several people to collaborate on the same document simultaneously, content collaboration software eliminates the need to email drafts back and forth or track down the document's latest version. File owners can see other people's changes/updates in real time, as well as combine all of them into a single document.
• Streamline content workflows: By letting any team member easily share and edit documents, content collaboration software makes it easier for teams to collaborate and ensure that the content is created, approved, and published efficiently. Moreover, the software ensures that content is consistent across all channels, helping brands create a unique tone of voice.

Key considerations for purchasing content collaboration software

Even though budget, team size, and business needs play a vital role in helping you select the content collaboration software, there are some key drivers you need to consider in order to make the right purchase decision. Have a look:

• Look forward to a built-in task manager: Avoid the hassle of conducting time-consuming meetings by choosing a content collaboration software with the built-in task management system. This helps you assign tasks in an actionable and easily trackable way, which will keep the team organized and efficient.
• Choose a solution with integration capabilities: When selecting a content collaboration software, the integration capabilities should be considered. The more integration abilities the software has, the easier it is to incorporate into your existing workflows. This lowers deployment time and dramatically boosts team performance.
• Go after an AI-enabled solution: Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies have revolutionized the way we work by giving a tremendous boost to automation. Choosing AI-enabled content collaboration software is a lucrative move as it can do various things to improve the team's efficiency. For instance, checking grammatical errors, analyzing usage patterns, etc.
• Ensure the software has regulatory compliance: The significance of data privacy and security regulation grows as businesses move towards a digital collaboration environment. Choosing a content collaboration software that adheres to the relevant rules, guidelines, and specifications, and is well-equipped with additional security capabilities, can be helpful in driving results.
• Provide after-sales support: After-sale services are a critical factor that most businesses overlook while picking out content collaboration software. Make sure the vendor offers customer-focused after-sales support services and not just a "one-size-fits-all" kind of assistance that won't work for your business needs.

Market trends to understand

The content space is evolving more rapidly than ever before. As companies compete for attention on the internet, content collaboration has become a prime differentiator. Here are promising content collaboration market trends you should keep your eye on:

• The adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning for collaboration: Collaboration tools specialized with voice assistants, predictive filtering systems, and other AI features are rapidly being adopted by businesses because they can optimize human efforts quickly. A study shows that companies are increasingly using AI and ML to eliminate reiteration during meetings, collaborative tasks, and long-term projects.
• Content-service platforms are redefining enterprise content management (ECM): Content has become an essential part of business strategy in recent years, allowing enterprises to create products, boost their marketing, increase sales, and more. As a result of this, a recent study has found that the enterprise content management market is becoming increasingly focused on utilizing new-age content solutions, including content collaboration tools.

Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations. They have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.