Creating a unified style guide for technical marketing content
Writing a style guide from scratch is time-consuming and unnecessary when publishing a style guide online. A unified style guide includes updates and revisions to current style guide content, integrating third-party style guide content where it makes sense, and developing fresh style guide content to meet your organization’s brand and other requirements.
Here’s how to create a unified style guide for your team:
Review leading style guides on the market
There’s value in studying others’ style guides because you can see the market’s influences and style trends. Over the years, I’ve amassed a small collection of style guides from past contracts and projects. I go back and study them when I need inspiration to
Here are some of my favorite style guides out in the market right now:
Conduct a style guide gap analysis
Your next step is to conduct a gap analysis of the existing style guides you have in place. Goals of the report include:
- Interview stakeholders for a historical perspective on style guides and their views on future unified style guide direction
- Review your current style guides against style guides from three industry leaders
- Deliver an analysis of the gaps with recommended solutions to resolve the holes in the new unified style guide
Create a unified style guide development plan
I recommend creating a Unified Style Guide Development Plan using Atlassian Trello, Asana, or an online tool of your choice that’ll show task progress and govern delivery dates.
The development plan should include benchmarks where other team members can review the unified style guide development in progress and offer their comments and feedback.
Todoist and Asana both offer asynchronous communications using comments and related features. I have accounts on both platforms and experience creating and managing projects using these tools.
Publish your unified style guide online
The days are done when publishing a style guide to a Word document or PDF are enough. Platforms such as GitBook and Automattic P2 make awesome platforms for style guides. These platforms and others let you make updates in real-time, not to mention these sorts of platforms are more user friendly than PDF, doc, or GDoc files.
Develop your unified style guide iteratively
It’s unrealistic for many of us to develop a style guide using a one and done method. Branding changes. Writing style changes. Content evolves. I always recommend that a unified style guide become an ongoing project because since you’re publishing online, you can merge in existing content, update old content, and of course, create new style guide content as your requirements demand.
Open your unified style guide to reviewers
Don’t forget to open your unified style guide for review and feedback as part of your style guide maintenance. Reviews can take place anytime, given that that online publishing platforms come with their own commenting tools.
You don’t want reviews to become a free for all. Work with your content developers and editors to develop the right set of access privileges and guidelines to conduct reviews based on your publishing platform's strengths.
My name is Will Kelly. I’m a technical marketing manager for a container security startup. Before that, I worked as a technical writer. My articles about DevOps, DevSecOps, cloud, and enterprise mobility have been published by TechTarget, InfoWorld, InfoQ, and other leading sites. Follow me on Twitter: @willkelly.
