Building a strong and recognizable brand requires using consistent language throughout an organization’s internal and external communication.
But maintaining the same language among many people and in various situations is a much bigger challenge than it may seem. Every email, blog post, sales deck, or webinar presentation must communicate the brand’s values and personality while making sure they follow all necessary regulations.
And since not everyone in your company are content writers, having a brand compliance tool is beneficial to help your teams stay on track and in line with all guidelines and regulations.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through what brand and content compliance really is, how to achieve content compliance, and help you find the best brand compliance software to help you and your team do the best job.
What is content compliance?
Content compliance refers to consistently following pre-established brand guidelines within an organization. It involves making sure that all marketing materials, communications, and brand assets align with the brand identity and messaging.
Organizations can build and sustain a strong and recognizable brand image by maintaining content compliance. This helps them remain recognizable and trustworthy, and create a “different” brand image in customers’ minds.
All this has numerous benefits for the brand, including strengthening brand equity, fostering brand loyalty, and improving the organization’s overall success.
Top six brand compliance software in 2023
Here are the top six brand compliance software in 2023:
1. Filestage – best brand compliance software for reviewing content
Filestage is an approval management tool that makes file approval faster, easier, and more consistent across your whole organization. From documents and designs to videos and interactive HTML, it helps you get your brand assets checked and approved without delay.
With a content compliance tool like Filestage, teams can build and maintain brand consistency by involving all stakeholders in every approval process step. Plus, you can make sure all your communication stays on brand.
Here are some key features that make Filestage an excellent content compliance software:
- Project dashboards – to manage all files, feedback, and stakeholders in one place
- Folders – for grouping projects by topic or client
- Review steps – for involving the right people at the right stage of the process
- Templates – for repeating the same approval process
- Automations – to change review statuses and move files from one step to the next
- Due dates – to keep projects on track and help you meet deadlines
- Notifications – when people add comments or submit approval decisions
- Version history – to keep tabs on previous comments and see what’s changed
- App integration – connects with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more
2. Frontify
Frontify offers a comprehensive brand management platform that enables companies to create, maintain, and enforce brand guidelines. It provides collaborative design, asset management, brand workflows, and style guide creation features.
Here are some key features making Frontify a great content compliance solution:
- Centralized brand hub where you can store all brand assets, guidelines, and resources. This allows teams to have a single source of truth for the brand and makes sure everyone is working with the most up-to-date and approved materials.
- Brand guidelines management within the platform. Brands can create specifications for visual elements like logos, typography, colors, imagery, tone of voice, and messaging.
- Brand asset management in one place. The platform offers features for organizing, storing, and sharing brand assets, including logos, images, videos, documents, and templates.
- Collaborative workflows for seamless collaboration between team members, stakeholders, and external partners.
- Design and prototyping capabilities that allow users to create and customize brand-related assets directly within the platform.
- Brand monitoring and content compliance features that help organizations track brand compliance across different channels and touchpoints. This helps organizations achieve advanced content matches by monitoring social media, websites, and other brand communications.
3. Brandfolder
Brandfolder is a cloud-based content compliance platform that allows companies to store, organize, and share brand assets. It offers features like version control, asset approval workflows, and customizable brand portals for easy access and distribution of brand materials.
Here are some key features that make Brandfolder effective in achieving content compliance:
- Centralized asset management and organization
- Brand guidelines enforcement and reference
- Customizable folder structures and tagging
- Access control and permissions
- Asset versioning and expiration
- Collaboration and sharing capabilities
- Analytics and reporting for insights
4. Bynder
Bynder is a digital asset management platform that includes brand compliance features. It allows companies to store, organize, and share brand assets, create brand guidelines, and control access to brand materials.
Here’s what makes Bynder suitable for building and maintaining content compliance:
- Centralized brand portal for easy content compliance management
- Brand guidelines and templates ensure brand consistency in visual elements
- Workflow automation streamlines collaboration and approval processes
- Asset versioning and history tracking maintain brand integrity
- Analytics and reporting provide insights to improve brand management and measure consistency
5. Widen Collective
Widen Collective is a cloud-based digital asset management platform with content compliance functionality. It provides tools for advanced content matches, including asset management, brand guidelines, creative project collaboration, and consistency monitoring.
Here are five key features that make Widen Collective a good brand consistency platform:
- Centralized asset library for easy access to approved brand assets
- Customizable brand guidelines and style guides to maintain consistency across all materials
- Workflow automation and approval processes ensure brand compliance throughout the content creation process
- Version control and asset history tracking help maintain brand integrity and prevent outdated materials from being used
- Advanced search and metadata capabilities enable efficient asset discovery, supporting consistent usage across teams and channels
6. Gmail
Gmail is a popular free web-based email service and a part of Google Workspace. And even though the tool isn’t a specialized content compliance platform, it can be used to maintain legal and regulatory requirements of your organization in daily communication.
With the advanced Gmail settings, users can set up rules to handle message matches for one or more expressions and make sure all email messages and text attachments are content-compliant.
Here’s how you can use advanced Gmail settings to assure content compliance:
- Set up a content compliance rule where you reject outgoing messages containing sensitive company information. For example, set up an outbound filter that detects the word confidential in the message body text.
- Set up an advanced content match containing metadata on a range of IP addresses, and create a message quarantine for emails from IP addresses outside the scope.
- Create a content compliance setting to route messages with specific text patterns to your legal department.
How to make sure your content is brand compliant
Even the best brand managers sometimes need a little help to make sure their message matches all the content compliance rules.
You can be unsure of the tone of voice in your next email blast or simply want to check if you’re using the right brand colors in your presentation. Even more importantly, check if your email messages will meet all regulatory requirements.
That’s when a good cheat sheet with the answers will be of great help!
Here’s how we make sure every message matches our content compliance rules at Filestage:
- Familiarize yourself with brand guidelines – All our new hires are introduced to and encouraged to examine detailed brand guidelines. This content compliance setting allows everyone to find instructions on logo usage, color schemes, typography, tone of voice, and specific language instructions.
- Use approved brand assets – We store all our approved brand assets in Google Workplace and on Figma so everyone from the team can access them at all times.
- Follow brand tone and messaging – We make sure we communicate consistently with the brand’s tone of voice and messaging guidelines. This content compliance rule contains specific instructions like how friendly we want to sound, whether to use contractions, and how to use the Oxford comma. The instructions make sure the content reflects our brand values, personality, and our communication style.
- Collaborate and ask for approvals – Content creation is a collaborative process, and by sharing all our content in Filestage with stakeholders, we make sure it gets necessary sign-offs before publishing or distributing.
- Conduct regular reviews and audits – All our content gets regular reviews and updates. This content compliance setting allows us to make regular updates to maintain the SEO scores and make sure all the language is in line with the brand guidelines.
Five examples of content compliance settings
When establishing your company’s content compliance guidelines, it’s good to remember some of the most prominent examples of such settings.
Here are the five most common examples of content compliance settings:
- Prohibited content
- Unique branding guidelines
- Copyright and intellectual property rights
- Advertising and disclosure
- Community guidelines
1. Prohibited content
This content compliance setting defines a list of content types that no one should ever create, share, or publish. It can include explicit or adult material, hate speech, harassment, illegal activities, or any content that violates applicable laws or regulatory requirements.
To make sure there is no prohibited content in any messages going outside of your organization, you can create a content compliance setting with an advanced content match in Gmail.
This content compliance setting will look for predefined sets of words and numerical patterns and flag all content that may alarm the regulatory bodies.
2. Unique branding guidelines
This content compliance setting ensures that the content aligns with the organization’s brand identity and visual standards.
These guidelines specify rules regarding logo usage, color palettes, typography, imagery, and overall design and textual aesthetics to maintain a consistent brand image across all content.
3. Copyright and intellectual property rights
If the organization engages in advertising or sponsored content, content compliance settings can include guidelines on truthful and accurate representation.
This includes accurate representation of products or services, adherence to advertising standards, and disclosure requirements concerning transparency about sponsored or paid content.
4. Advertising and disclosure
If the organization engages in advertising or sponsored content, content compliance settings can include guidelines on truthful and accurate representation.
This includes accurate representation of products or services, adherence to advertising standards, and disclosure requirements concerning transparency about sponsored or paid content.
5. Community guidelines
Community guidelines establish the rules of conduct and acceptable behavior for users or members within a community or platform.
This content compliance setting addresses issues like hate speech, bullying, harassment, discrimination, and inappropriate or offensive content. They provide a framework for fostering a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment.
Final thoughts
Maintaining content compliance across the entire organization requires a lot of planning and establishing efficient processes.
Thankfully, powerful content compliance software can help speed up the processes and make sure all teams across the organization are following the same brand guidelines and regulations.
If you’d like to see how Filestage helps you maintaining content compliance, make sure to give it a try for free →
