This is how I look at it, though I'm no pro.

ECM refers to an entire strategy of capturing, storing, management, preservation, and delivery of content and documents related to a business or organization.

In layman’s terms, this means 'How do we create, store and disseminate our information to the clients?'

Typically this type of strategy is fueled by various requirements. Document retention, client needs, security to name just a few.

Most companies will implement an ECM that will incorporate the above requirements into a single Tool which is then used for the Publishing, whether internal or external or both.

An example would be a MS SharePoint application. SharePoint will allow you to produce documents in Word which can then:

Be automatically sent into a Publishing process (ie, Accept/Reject from upper management) without the author's additional knowledge of WHO needs to see it.
The documents can be published to an Intranet/Internet automatically, and various 'Versions' can be held for historical purposes.
An automatic 'Retention Period' can be applied to the document, so that without additional intervention from the Author, the document will eventually be made 'Historical' and sent to the Records office for storage.
The document's 'Security' requirements will automatically determine who can see it, what version, Draft or published, etc.

All the documents are held in a database which is then Searchable, again dependant on things like Security, retention, Draft/Published, all without additional intervention by the Author.

This is just a small touch on a rather complicated subject.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_content_management

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