If your business is like many others these days, chances are you are creating visual content at an astounding rate. The question that will soon arise, if it hasn’t already, is how to manage these visual assets?
The reasons for having a workable visual content strategy are rooted mainly in time-savings and asset protection. How often have you personally searched for what seemed an eternity for a specific visual? Painful memories, I know.
The time savings alone that would occur if you didn’t have to search low and high for that particular image or video can be worth it. Not to mention the need to ensure you have proof of your ownership for these images should a copyright infringement action come against you. That could be an expensive mistake, and one that is completely preventable. Let’s have a quick look at how you can get a better handle on your company’s visual assets.
5 Tips for managing your visual content
Create or purchase a system – If you have someone on your team who can establish a system for you, great. If not, there are plenty of solutions available, including off site cloud solutions. A company called North Plains is a leader in digital asset management.
Use your own naming conventions – Make sure you name your image files in a manner that depicts what the content is. It saves a boatload of time if you name something “old small logo” as opposed to IMG3899976236.
Create guidelines for its use – There may be a number of people who will need access to these files over the course of their useful lifetime. Be sure you provide guidelines for the proper use of your content, so that you aren’t surprised after the fact when it can be very hard to fix.
Centralize your storage – Resist the temptation to have files in several different locations. Having your assets in one centralized location, with appropriate backup systems enabled, will make your life a lot easier.
Create access protocols – Not everyone may require the same type of access, and you should be able to control access so your content is not accessed outside of your company, or by employees no longer employed by you.