Erika Heald is the host of the weekly #ContentChat LinkedIn Live video podcast for content marketers, held Mondays at noon Pacific. As a B2B marketing consultant, she helps organizations define and execute content marketing strategies that drive business and professional growth. As a creator, and gluten-free blogger helping people discover gut-friendly farm-to-table food. She frequently speaks at B2B marketing industry events on employee brand advocacy, content strategy, customer experience, AI readiness, and social media topics. You can find her on her blogs erikaheald.com and erikasglutenfreekitchen.com.
The #ContentChat Bulletin: Your Style Guide Already Exists (It’s Just Undocumented)
|
Most organizations already have a style guide—it just isn’t documented. Instead, it lives:
And while those tiny decisions may not feel strategic in the moment, they add up fast. Every: “Would we say it this way?” Every: “Do we capitalize this?” Every: “Can you make this sound more on-brand?” …creates friction. And not the positive type my friend Robert Rose talks about in his fantastic book, Valuable Friction. Not just for your content team, but for your freelancers, your subject matter experts, your agencies, and increasingly, your AI tools. Because here’s the thing: AI can only follow the guidance you’ve actually documented. Not the standards your team assumes everyone somehow knows. That’s one of the biggest reasons I believe so strongly that content governance isn’t bureaucracy — it’s operational enablement. A strong style guide isn’t meant to control creativity or act as the Brand police. It exists to:
That’s exactly what we’re unpacking in today’s #ContentChat livestream as part of my 12-part Content Foundations series. Today’s focus is on Chapter 2 — Assembling a Comprehensive Style Guide. I'll talk about:
Because scalable content doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when you document what “good” actually looks like. Start on your own style guide draft by answering this question: What’s one content decision your team has to revisit or re-explain repeatedly? Coming Up on #ContentChatContent Chat is my weekly LinkedIn Live video chat focused on sharing expertise and ideas amongst the content marketing community. Join the conversation on Mondays at noon Pacific / 3 p.m. Eastern. RSVP for our upcoming conversations by clicking the chat date below to get a reminder and to access the chat. If you can't catch the livestream, you can view the archives on our YouTube channel or listen to the audio version on your favorite podcast platform.
Until next time, stay safe and be well! Cheers, Erika |
The #ContentChat Bulletin
Erika Heald is the host of the weekly #ContentChat LinkedIn Live video podcast for content marketers, held Mondays at noon Pacific. As a B2B marketing consultant, she helps organizations define and execute content marketing strategies that drive business and professional growth. As a creator, and gluten-free blogger helping people discover gut-friendly farm-to-table food. She frequently speaks at B2B marketing industry events on employee brand advocacy, content strategy, customer experience, AI readiness, and social media topics. You can find her on her blogs erikaheald.com and erikasglutenfreekitchen.com.
On our road trip to Sea Ranch earlier this month, we listened to the Dungeon Crawler Carl book one audiobook. We've both read the entire series, and thought it would be fun to listen to the much-raved-about audio version while we were in the car for 4+ hours. It was amazing. The voices were on point (and hysterical). And it truly added a whole new dimension to the story. I know many people who regularly listen to audiobooks to squeeze in some book time while commuting or doing mundane...
Kupo and Bulleit enjoying the view on one of our walks in Sea Ranch last weekend. My partner and I trekked to the Coast this past weekend with our bulldogs, taking a long weekend road trip to celebrate my birthday. I wanted to listen to and see the ocean, and have a hot tub available for soaking whenever I wanted. We found a great vacation rental in Sea Ranch that ticked all the boxes. When we arrived and started unpacking, I noticed a few things that made this vacation rental a lot different...
If I were giving today’s #ContentChat talk in person, I wonder if I’d be met by picketers holding signs reading, “Boycott all writers who use AI!” Everywhere I’ve gone online over the past two weeks, I’ve seen increased hostility toward AI use, like the Threads post from someone outing another writer for using AI. As it turns out, though, they were using it to create ads to sell their books—not to write the books themselves. Yet, this was somehow still grounds for ruining all the authors’...