Announcements

Inline Comments Will Make You Fitter, Happier, and More Productive

While there was plenty of beer, BBQ and honky tonk at the Contently Cookout at SXSW Interactive this year, there was also a lot of talk about the challenges content marketers face in collaborating with their peers, and especially with compliance.

As Tara Meehan of Guardian Life Insurance put it:

“Legal’s first job, understandably is to protect the brand. Our job is to tell the story. So it’s very critical for us to work with our compliance team very closely to make sure we’re all on the same page. There’s no demonization of compliance. We’re not, ‘Compliance bad. Content good.’ It’s not like that.”

As content marketers, we have to be able to easily and effectively collaborate with our colleagues in order to stand a snowball’s chance of being successful.

That’s why Contently is very excited about the release of inline comments, a major advancement in our collaboration capabilities.

Introducing Inline Comments

So what’s all the fuss about? Well, the main role of inline comments is to allow Contently users to do the same type of collaborative editing and redlining as familiar (and lawyer-friendly) products like Microsoft Word or Google Docs, all within Contently.

You’ll now be able to leave detailed feedback on specific words or passages within a story, simply by highlighting the text and adding your comments.  You can notify your colleagues and contributors of the need to address changes by mentioning them within the comment, which lets them know you need their feedback. Once the comment has been addressed, you can “resolve” the comment, which will then be logged within a searchable database and included in your activity tab for better tracking and follow-up.

This log will then be searchable, and existing version control functionality will be updated to display comments added per version.

Wait, you’re thinking. This sounds great… but does it mean I’m going to get even MORE notification emails from Contently? Glad you asked!  We’ve designed the notification system specifically to reduce the volume of emails you get.

Currently, collaboration-related emails are sent to everyone who is subscribed to a story. Going forward, emails will only only go to users who create, reply to, or are specifically mentioned in a comment. If you don’t need to take an action, we won’t bother you.

So if you don’t select or mention someone in a new comment, they won’t be notified. Comments will also no longer appear in your message center – go directly to the story or collaboration tab to keep track of all of the communications related to a story.

All of this is aimed at making your work more efficient and effective, whether you’re working with your compliance team, or simply trying get that great new piece out to the market. Have questions? Contact our Product team today and check out our Product Update Center for other updates.

Richard Sharp is the Head of Product Marketing at Contently.

Tags:

Get better at your job right now.

Read our monthly newsletter to master content marketing. It’s made for marketers, creators, and everyone in between.

Trending stories