Bear Essentials: Content Without Lifecycle Rules Is Just Digital Hoarding
Perception
You think you have a “robust” content library. It’s FULL of “assets”. Pridefully, you boast about the volume of files your team has amassed over the years.
Reality
Most of your content isn’t “evergreen” but exists in repositories as if it were. Files never get archived, redundancies pile up, and the result isn't a treasure trove of creativity, but confusion over which files to use.
No one is maintaining it. No one owns it (or wants to).
Without rules for content retirement or refresh, you’ve inadvertently created a digital landfill and a liability.
Why It Matters
Unmanaged content can:
- Confuse your voice and brand.
- Clog workflows and creates redundancy.
- Undermine discoverability and brand clarity.
What Most Teams Get Wrong
- Publishing content and then forgetting about it. The extreme "one and done" mentality.
- Assuming “evergreen” means “always fine as is.”
- Not assigning ownership and enforcing governance across asset lifecycle.
What to Do Instead
- Define a content lifecycle; rules for each stage of publish, live, review, retire specific to defined content types (news, editorial, evergreen, promotional, …).
- Leverage the tech stack to automate what you can; review reminders, auto-archive, tag assets with review date at creation based on asset type, etc..
- Assign ownership for regular (i.e., quarterly) auditing and archive clean-up.
Seventh Bear Take
If there’s no lifecycle, there’s no strategy. You’re just hoarding with better folders.
Retiring content doesn’t delete value; it prevents rot.
Deep Dive
For a deeper dive on this topic, check out: AI Content Audit – Remembering What You Forgot to Remember
