Knowledge Management vs Content Management - Objectives, Workflows, and Tools

You want to educate your team on a new process, nurture a culture of knowledge sharing, and ensure information is readily available to everyone. How can you achieve this? Do you need a knowledge management system (KMS)  or a content management system (CMS)?

Managing information effectively is crucial for any organization today. Yet, many people struggle to understand the differences between content and knowledge management. The confusion is understandable—both aim to educate and inform, often using similar tools and strategies. However, knowing the key differences is essential for implementing the right solution to meet specific needs.

In this article, we'll provide a comprehensive comparison of content management and knowledge management. By understanding their unique objectives, workflows, and tools, you'll be better equipped to choose the right system for your organization’s needs.

What is Knowledge Management?

Simply put, knowledge management is about creating, sharing, using, and managing knowledge and information within an organization. Its goal is to help people access information, work more efficiently, and save time by making informed decisions. 

Consider a scenario where an experienced employee is about to retire, and a new hire is stepping in to take over their responsibilities. A knowledge management system ensures that the retiring employee's knowledge and experience are documented and easily accessible to the new hire. This is helping new employees learn quickly and transition smoothly saving time and resources.

Companies can gain various additional advantages from implementing effective knowledge management:

• They can build a sense of belonging and strengthen employee connections within the organization. For example, when people are timely informed about company events, they are more likely to feel less excluded and more motivated to contribute. 
• Knowledge management also helps employees grow their skills. By transferring knowledge, employees are given a chance to learn from others grow their skills, and reach the company’s goals faster. 
• It also promotes networking and collaboration and creates a common language within the organization. A company that encourages knowledge sharing among employees also fosters better teamwork.
• Knowledge management also includes both explicit knowledge like documents, and databases, and tacit knowledge like skills and experiences. 

For effective knowledge management organizations use many different tools like wikis, knowledge base software, and collaboration tools. These tools help companies capture and organize content, discover “hidden” knowledge, and support cooperation among team members. 

What is Content Management?

The term "content" encompasses words, images, symbols, and any other messages conveyed through media. 

Consequently, content management involves creating various types of content tailored for specific media (social media, websites, etc.)  and ensuring that the content is effectively planned, edited, published, and distributed across key channels. 

Companies usually have teams dedicated to creating content for different purposes. For instance, marketing teams are often in charge of creating pieces of content like blog posts or social media posts that aim to inform and educate readers. 

However, content doesn’t always have to be for external usage. Many companies create content in the form of technical documents, FAQs, or articles for their employees so they can understand how the company functions. 

Content management is usually executed through content management systems (CMS) that allow users to plan, schedule, edit, share, and modify their content on multiple platforms. Some of the most common CMS are WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and more. These CMS platforms allow you to not only manage the full content life cycle but also optimize it for search engines (SEO), personalize content for different audiences, and automate content workflows.

Key Differences Between Knowledge Management and Content Management 

Knowledge management and content management are often used interchangeably. Both aim to transfer information effectively, however, there is a difference between the objectives, workflows, and tools used in transferring the information. 

We’ve broken down both of these processes into the mentioned categories, so we can understand the differences between them better. 

Objectives 

Knowledge management in organizations has several key objectives:

• Facilitate easy onboarding: Help new employees learn quickly and effectively.
• Prevent and control knowledge loss: Knowledge management aims to keep valuable knowledge within the company when employees retire or quit their jobs.
• Improve knowledge access: Knowledge management aims to establish smoother access to resources and tools that individuals and teams can use to gain more knowledge about their roles and stay informed about company policies and procedures.
• Increase collaboration and knowledge sharing: Motivating employees to collaborate more, share ideas and solutions, and teach each other various skills is another key objective of knowledge management. 
• Improve customer satisfaction: Many companies use self-service knowledge bases for customers to allow them to easily find answers on their own, leading to higher satisfaction levels.

Content management key objectives: 

• Ensure that the content is in the right format: Some information is best shared through video, while others are better suited to text. Content managers should craft content in the format most convenient for the audience.
• Ensure that the content reaches the target audience: Whether the target audience is internal employees or external users, ensure that content is published on platforms where it is most likely to be seen.
• Ensure that the content is accurate, relevant, and readable: Content managers need to ensure that the produced output is truthful, well-researched, relevant, and easy to understand to avoid confusing or frustrating the audience.
• Develop engaging and interactive content that keeps users on the website longer: A key goal of content management is to create a strategy that keeps readers engaged and on the website longer, leading to better long-term results.
• Ensure content is logically structured and easily navigable: A part of content management is creating content that is easy to understand and ensuring that it effectively serves its purpose.
• Regularly update content to keep it fresh and relevant: Keeping content up to date is crucial to avoid misinformation and ensure that readers are well-informed on important topics.

Workflows 

Knowledge management:

• Knowledge capture and storing: Knowledge management focuses on capturing and harnessing valuable knowledge within an organization. This involves identifying key sources of expertise, such as experienced employees, and gathering critical insights, best practices, and relevant documents. The collected information is then organized into well-structured formats, such as documents, tutorials, and how-to guides, to make it easily accessible and usable.
• Knowledge sharing: This is another crucial aspect of the knowledge management workflow. Managers must ensure that once they have gathered all the necessary information, they can efficiently share the knowledge with their employees. Knowledge sharing can be accomplished in various ways, but most companies utilize a knowledge base and internal collaboration tools.
• Knowledge application: When the knowledge is captured and stored a knowledge management strategy should outline how this knowledge will be applied and used to make data-based decisions. 
• Documentation review and update: Knowledge management ensures that the documentation is up to date and accurate so no wrong decisions are made due to outdated and old information.

Content management:

• Content strategy and planning: Developing and executing a plan for content creation, distribution, and maintenance.
• Content creation and editing: Ensures the production and modification of digital content, with content managers and team members responsible for researching, creating, and editing it.
• Content storage and retrieval: Manages the saving and accessing of digital content, ensuring it's organized and easily accessible.
• Content publishing: Oversees the distribution of content, ensuring it is shared on relevant channels and targets the right audience, often through extensive audience research and testing.
• Analytics and optimization: Tracking content performance and making data-driven improvements.

Tools

Knowledge management tools:

• Wikis - A central repository for all your company knowledge and information.
• Knowledge base software - A tool that offers a centralized place for storing, organizing, and sharing technical documentation and important documents. Knowledge bases usually offer a variety of features that help companies collaborate easily and seamlessly share knowledge. 
• Collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Slack: Many companies rely on conferencing tools such as MS Teams and Slack for internal communication. These tools have proven to be efficient when companies need effective means for collaboration and knowledge sharing. They allow teams to work together in real-time, share documents, and manage projects. Additionally, they offer options like searchable chat histories, and app integrations that ease the work even further. 

Content management tools: 

• Content Management Systems (CMS) - Software for creating, managing, and publishing digital content.
• Digital Asset Management Systems (DAM) - Tools for storing, organizing, and retrieving rich media assets like images and videos.
• Web Content Management Systems (WCM) - The tool is designed specifically for managing website content.

Comparison Table 

Why Are Knowledge Management and Content Management Often Confused?

Both content management and knowledge management aim to transfer information effectively, so they are often confused. 

CMS (Content Management Systems) and KM (Knowledge Management) can be tools for effective knowledge sharing. Both store various types of content, such as documents, FAQs, articles, and more.

However, the main difference lies in their core objectives and applications:

The goal of KM is to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing within an organization. It aims to identify knowledge sources and gaps and make valuable information accessible to the right people at the right time. 

KM helps companies make data-driven decisions by leveraging their workforce's collective expertise and insights. It also focuses on fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation.

On the other hand, CM focuses on creating, managing, and distributing content, primarily for digital media like websites and social media. It involves creating, publishing, sharing, and updating various types of digital content. The emphasis is on maintaining an organized and efficient process for managing content and, ensuring that it reaches and engages the target audience effectively.

Streamline Your Knowledge Management with Helpjuice

If your goal is to improve knowledge sharing in your organization and give your employees access to important information and documents, then you need powerful knowledge management software like Helpjuice.

Helpjuice is a flexible tool that allows you to store important information about your work, provides easy access to all necessary information, keeps business knowledge within the organization, and offers collaboration options to capture your team's expertise.

With this solution, you can:

• Format and edit documents quickly and easily.
• Control which employees will have access to the documents.
• Collaborate with colleagues through commenting and feedback options.

Enhance your collaboration environment and schedule a demo now.

Final Verdict: Which One to Choose?

Although these two types of management overlap, it should be clear by now that they have different goals and use different tools. 

Suppose you aim to foster a work environment centered around sharing expertise and knowledge. In that case, you need knowledge management software to digitize these processes and make important information accessible to everyone. 

An intuitive tool like Helpjuice can help your organization achieve this goal. 

On the other hand, content management systems are an excellent solution if you have a digital medium through which you want to inform your customers or readers about important topics in your field.