WHAT DOES A CONTENT EDITOR DO?

Published: August 15, 2024 - The Content Editor establishes and maintains high editorial standards for app content and branded communications while writing and proofreading marketing copy across various channels. This position supports project leads and the Business Development team in evaluating web novels and offering structural and editorial assistance to contracted authors. Champions process improvements, stay informed on publishing trends, and provides release support to enhance efficiency and consistency across divisions.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Content Editor

1. Content Editor Duties

  • Content Writing: Support the Online Content Marketing Manager to write, edit, translate, and proofread compelling and engaging content for online marketing assets.
  • Brand Voice Interpretation: Interpret the brand voice into promotional copy for marketing campaigns in a relevant, substantial, style-focused, and searchable manner for the customers.
  • Trend Monitoring: Work with search teams to stay up-to-date on business performance, fashion trends, and terminology.
  • Collaboration: Work closely with digital visual designers and social media teams to analyze, identify, and optimize effective communication practices.
  • Brand Consistency: Ensure brand tone is accurate, informative, and consistent throughout the site.
  • Marketing Material Creation: Work closely with styling and marketing teams in creating new and innovative marketing materials.
  • Commercial Awareness: Have a strong sense of commercial, brand, and technical awareness, whilst keeping up to date with current trends.
  • Content Performance Monitoring: Monitor and improve the performance of website content usability and efficiency.
  • Content Planning: Support the Online Content Marketing Manager in creating and managing content plans, and content calendars on a daily/weekly basis according to events, trends, and push.
  • Content Editing: Edit and proof a range of content types (largely reports) to a consistently high standard.
  • Project Management: Assist the Content Development Manager in managing projects, onshore and offshore, to achieve agreed milestones, keep stakeholders up to date, and maintain budget and time commitments.
  • Process Improvement: Identify and develop processes to improve the accuracy and efficiency of content production from an editorial standpoint.
  • Project Support: Support the development of ongoing and future projects.

2. Content Editor Details

  • Project Management: Create and own editorial calendars for multiple projects and manage execution within set deadlines.
  • Content Strategy: Understand business objectives and target audience(s), develop effective content strategies, and monitor performance on them.
  • Product Collaboration: Work with product managers on growing content projects from the incubation phase to full scale.
  • Team Management: Plan and commission articles from category experts and manage a team of local & international online freelancers.
  • Content Editing: Edit content written in-house as well as by freelancers, keeping in mind article structure, SEO, and line editing across finance & automobile verticals.
  • Quality Assurance: Check the content output, ensuring it is of international standards in terms of quality, style, and flair.
  • Proofreading: Proofread and edit articles before they are taken live on the website.
  • Market Research: Conduct competitive market research to stay abreast of category trends, new topic ideas, and more.
  • Stakeholder Collaboration: Work with multiple stakeholders across teams including business, compliance, and more to deliver on project timelines.
  • Leadership: Lead, coach, and staff a team of messaging leaders, editors, content producers, writers, and marketing agencies.
  • Storytelling: Lead the creation of messaging and compelling stories based on target personas, key trends, competitive landscape, and points of differentiation.
  • Content Management: Responsible for content strategy, development/implementation, and management of all relevant content and assets.
  • Performance Analysis: Work closely and collaborate with marketing operations to analyze content performance and determine how to make changes to the content to best optimize performance.

3. Content Editor Responsibilities

  • Video Editing: Editing video content such as video clips and compilations for Lamwork’s social platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
  • Audience Engagement: Help grow Lamwork’s audience and understand the types of content that keep them engaged.
  • Content Research: Researching and scripting content.
  • Media Management: Ingesting and managing media.
  • Client Communication: Liaising with clients about video edits (where appropriate).
  • Process Adherence: Following existing edit processes and naming conventions.
  • Social Media Strategy: Understanding of, and input into, social platform strategies.
  • Thumbnail Creation: Creating bespoke thumbnails for YouTube using Photoshop.
  • Event Coverage: Working across race weekends (when needed).
  • Production Management: Manage the beginning-to-end production of shoots including budgets.
  • Vendor Coordination: Source, approach, brief, and negotiate with the approved photography and creative teams (Grooming, Location, Set Design, Model, etc.).
  • Post-Production Leadership: Leading post-production in order to ensure image delivery meets deadlines.
  • Creative Collaboration: Working with the Creative Content and Copy Teams to deliver compelling storytelling in line with shoot objectives.

4. Content Editor Job Summary

  • Concept Development: Develop shoot concepts for product categories and other marketing incentives that require a creative identity.
  • Visual Presentation: Present ideas eloquently through visual presentations that can be shared with colleagues internally and creative partners externally.
  • Creative Approval: Approve all creative concepts with the Head of Creative & Content ahead of shoot production.
  • Talent Sourcing: Source new talent, trends, contributors, models, locations, etc., and maintain strong contacts in the industry.
  • Trend Collaboration: Attend meetings with the buying teams to ensure that we have a thorough understanding of the key buys, trends, and exclusives.
  • Shoot Planning: Develop shoot plan with the Head of Creative & Content that works in alignment with the creative content calendar, and PR & Marketing calendar.
  • Cross-Department Collaboration: Work with all departments to ensure commercial viability of content.
  • Asset Creation: Feed into asset creation and product selection for content planning including emails, promos, and homepage.
  • Commercial Viability: Work with the Digital Content Manager to ensure commercial viability of all shoot assets.
  • Seasonal Alignment: Work closely with the PR & Marketing team to ensure creative assets support seasonal planning.
  • Styling Direction: Define with the Head of Creative & Content the styling direction and product selection of assigned photoshoots.
  • Content Oversight: Oversee the content administrator on sample requests and in-store booking out sessions, ensuring that product selection is aligned with the styling direction and fulfills the purpose of the shoot.

5. Content Editor Accountabilities

  • Content Strategy: Work closely with the wider team to build and execute an effective content strategy that increases views, engagement
  • Content Consistency: Work with ONE’s Content Team to ensure content produced is consistent with ONE’s wider content strategy.
  • Creative Collaboration: Collaborate to create compelling creative content that engages visitors on various external communication channels.
  • Newsletter Support: Support the creation of content for the weekly Aftershocks email newsletter.
  • Timeline Management: Work within agreed timelines to meet editorial and production schedules.
  • Editorial Oversight: Ensure editorial oversight of the ONE COVID-19 Africa Tracker content, managing risk and elevating issues to the Hub Director.
  • Relationship Management: Help manage and develop relationships with key digital platforms and reporters.
  • SEO Strategy: Contribute to the development and implementation of ONE’s SEO strategy and analyze content performance across digital channels, making recommendations to improve engagement.
  • Content Publishing: Publish content using ONE’s WordPress CMS.
  • Internal Collaboration: Develop internal relationships with other ONE teams who provide content, and help maintain high content standards.
  • Digital Improvement: Work with ONE’s Digital Team to help identify improvements
  • Problem Solving: Recommend solutions/best practices and solve complex problems.

6. Content Editor Functions

  • Editorial Standards: Responsible for establishing and maintaining high editorial standards across app content and related channels.
  • Copywriting & Proofreading: Supports the work of the content team by writing and proofreading copy for marketing initiatives such as emails, social media content, advertising copy, and web content.
  • Project Evaluation: Supports project leads and Business Development team in evaluating prospective web novels from individual authors and publishers.
  • Author Support: Serves as a resource for contracted authors to help with story structure, editing, and proofreading.
  • Creative Project Support: Supports additional internal creative projects in other divisions.
  • Brand Communication: Responsible for maintaining high editorial standards across all branded communications.
  • Process Improvement: Makes recommendations for updates/changes to processes where appropriate.
  • Industry Awareness: Stays up to date on current publishing trends.
  • Release Support: Provide out-of-hours support for releases and upgrades.
  • Efficiency & Consistency: Champion simplicity, efficiency, and consistency.

7. Content Editor Job Description

  • Client Engagement: Assist the Internal team in helping Pharma clients and client-initiative stakeholders achieve meaningful customer connection (touchpoints) via engaged events and programs that are targeted and that support the client objectives.
  • Resource Management: Assist in managing internal resources for project development and on-time delivery.
  • Content Quality Assurance: Assist in ensuring the quality of content meets customer expectations and maximizes the number of touchpoints to target customer groups to achieve client outcomes.
  • Event Execution: Assist the Internal team in the execution of planned events/activities.
  • Post-Event Analysis: Assist the Internal team in post-event analysis, synopsis, and ROI assessments.
  • Opportunity Identification: Assist the Internal team in identifying future opportunities to help the client grow, and connect with the business.
  • Content Review: Reviewing, proofreading, and editing in-house and ordered content.
  • On-Page Optimization: Completing on-page optimization of in-house and ordered content, including proper meta information, internal/external linking, keyword density, and other SEO quality standards.
  • Content Audits: Completing periodic audits of client websites to ensure existing content meets Google’s page quality standards apart from SEO (Expertise, Authority, Trust).
  • Content Reoptimization: Identifying and reoptimizing the existing copy of underperforming web pages.
  • Content Scheduling: Responsible for maintaining and executing an effective content schedule.

8. Content Editor Overview

  • Content Strategy Development: Contributes heavily to the development of the Content Strategy and its implementation.
  • Content Review: Reviews content to ensure that: 1) it is free of grammatical errors; 2) it is engaging and reflects our brand voice; 3) messaging is clear and on point.
  • Fact-Checking Oversight: Ensures content creators fact-check articles and vet them with internal stakeholders where necessary.
  • Quality Assurance: Ensures content creators have done due diligence on content quality: copyreading to detect and correct errors in spelling, punctuation, syntax, and other grammatical issues using tools provided to them (Grammarly, Hemingway App, Content Style Guide Checklists, etc.).
  • Content Improvement: Discusses and provides suggestions to content creators on how to improve content’s readability, coherence, style, and organization, among others.
  • Proofreading & Polishing: Proofreads and polishes final copy for publishing, and facilitates final approval where appropriate.
  • Content Restructuring: Craft, restructure, or rework content into different formats.
  • Content Updating: Oversees updating of content on different platforms where needed so that information stays relevant and current.
  • Publication Management: Oversees publication production, from article writing to design/layout, ensuring adherence to deadlines and budget requirements.
  • Continuous Learning: Undertakes continuous learning and knowledge improvement on generating high-performing content, keeping abreast of new and changing rules and best practices, trends, and industry insights.
  • Skill Development: Upskill through company-sponsored training, workshops, and seminars.

9. Content Editor Details and Accountabilities

  • Content Planning & Editing: Plans and edits content intended to engage and retain the interest of readers and achieve clients’ marketing objectives.
  • Editorial Judgment & Customer Service: Uses good editorial judgment and customer service skills to develop editorial planning processes for each client or Coffey publication or content library, for print or digital use.
  • Editorial Planning: Carries out editorial planning sessions for library content or with clients for custom publications or websites.
  • Headline Writing: Writes headlines, captions, and blurbs.
  • Editing Evaluation: Evaluates editing changes suggested by copy editors and fact-checkers.
  • Client & Style Compliance: Ensures that issues meet client needs and Coffey style.
  • Client Consultation: Consults with clients and internal staff to improve the effectiveness of client publications through better use of content, design, art, targeting, distribution, or other means.
  • Writing Assignment Management: Provides clear and concise writing assignments for projects, ensuring that writers meet all requirements listed in the assignment.
  • Writer Support: Provides additional support and direction to writers as requested.
  • Feedback Provision: Sends content back for rewrites along with feedback.
  • Management Feedback: Provides management with feedback.
  • Prototype Review Participation: Participates in publication and website prototype reviews, helping provide input toward designs that reflect client preferences as well as industry best practices.

10. Content Editor Tasks

  • Editorial & Design Coordination: Ensures that the editorial message matches and complements that of art and design and also works in collaboration with art directors to achieve good balance among all page elements.
  • Content Usage Analysis: Reviews client usage reports for content libraries.
  • Data Interpretation: Interprets information and uses data to plan for future content.
  • Content Quality & Deadline Management: Takes responsibility for ensuring that Coffey content meets all deadlines and content standards and that clients receive excellent customer service.
  • Publishing Schedule Management: Ensures that content is published on schedule and on budget.
  • Client Communication: Communicates production requirements to clients; handles client concerns and relays information, as appropriate, to management.
  • Client Representation: Represents Coffey in face-to-face meetings with clients and/or prospective clients to consult, advise, plan, and/or evaluate content.
  • Writer Feedback: Provides regular feedback and critiques to writers.
  • Management Reporting: Provides management with regular updates.
  • Issue Resolution: Confers with the department director and others to seek resolution of challenging issues, questions, and needs relating to the production of custom materials.
  • Problem Anticipation & Resolution: Anticipates potential editorial, scheduling, and production problems and takes action to solve them.
  • Industry Knowledge Maintenance: Maintains up-to-date knowledge of major medical, hospital industry, and managed care issues, including treatment breakthroughs and/or changes, technology, diagnostic procedures, and prevention measures.
  • Timekeeping: Uses the Coffey timekeeping system to keep an accurate record of time spent on various job activities.
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