Companies are quickly realizing that their digital presence is critically important to achieving business success. Supporting this growing digital presence is a burgeoning volume of digital assets – the juicy core of any digital content. Business is using digital assets more than ever.
Each event is marked with a LinkedIn post or blog article, and all these need resources like video content and images to make them sizzle. Marketers are acutely aware of the importance of digital assets like images and digital stories for communicating, but this has now spilled over into other departments too. Digital stories and other digital assets must be easy to access by any team member that needs them.
Smaller companies can go for some time without needing to adopt a specific solution. However, as a business grows, it becomes apparent that digital media can’t just live in everyone’s own folders and drives. These need to be intelligently organized and accessible to whoever needs them. To organize and retrieve the right digital stories or other digital assets, businesses often start looking for a Digital asset management (DAM) solution.
But, as we’ll see, this isn’t necessary – if you already use professional digital storytelling software.
What is digital storytelling software?
There are many different types of digital storytelling software, and these offer a wide variety of capabilities and applications. Some of these are basic (but capable) apps designed for individuals and content creators. These are often widely used by students as they learn the art of digital storytelling and start assembling digital stories from scenes.
Digital storytelling software for business, on the other hand, needs to offer much more.
A top-level enterprise-grade digital storytelling software app or platform can serve any kind of content on any kind of screen or display. Whether you’re using interactive digital signage or a hologram – professional digital storytelling software can handle it. Some digital storytelling platforms can even be used to power a Customer Experience Center, complex hybrid events, and Virtual Studios.
How digital storytelling software helps keep digital media organized
One important feature for digital storytelling software is the integrated content management system (CMS). This is a customizable library of all digital content, and it is used by the software to locate and trigger the right content at the right time. Businesses typically use this kind of software to run a briefing center or immersive experience.
The content library of your professional digital storytelling software can often be used to put the same content in multiple ‘folders’ or ‘collections’, and this helps to organize digital storytelling by theme, subject, emotion, or any other label that is useful. Professional digital storytelling software can often enable worldwide access to media assets, using a secure cloud infrastructure, depending on which you choose.
As well as helping to deliver smooth digital storytelling, there’s another benefit this can offer businesses who are struggling with their digital media management.
A big secondary benefit: using digital storytelling software for DAM
Provided the storytelling platform is capable enough, it should support any file type. This means that digital media including still images, soundbites, soundtracks, 3D content – as well as video – can all be organized and retrieved using your digital storytelling software as a digital asset management (DAM) solution. For most businesses, this can cover all the functions they would want from a DAM without any additional cost.
Digital storytelling software can provide privileged access to files to anyone in your organization. This means that any team member with the right privileges can easily identify, locate, and download the file they need.
Now, adding exactly the right video or image for that LinkedIn post can be accomplished in seconds.
Using the structured media libraries, content teams can create and combine digital assets into different collections themed however they choose. Need a picture from that trade show? No problem. Want a digital story that talks about your company’s commitment to the environment? Easy.
Control over your digital assets
A huge advantage of using your digital storytelling software’s CMS as a DAM is the editorial control that can be welded. Each piece of content or asset can be kept up-to-date and on-brand, ensuring that outdated media never see the light of day again.
Many content creators are wary of giving access to their files in case they are corrupted or deleted by mistake; the controls available with the CMS can help avoid this. Using the digital storytelling software’s own CMS ensures ‘gated access’ to a repository of approved media that has reached the end of the content creation cycle – and originals can always be kept in a secure vault that ensures that there’s always a backup version.
Another massive advantage is the total overview you gain; you know what you’ve got and what’s missing. When everything is perfectly organized, it’s immediately apparent if you are lacking media of a certain type or with a particular message. This facet trickles over into time-saving benefits too. Staff will no longer need to embark on a fruitless hunt for a particular asset, and - even better - it avoids the wasteful practice of generating new redundant content because you can’t find what you need, even when it’s ‘in there somewhere.’
Investing in digital storytelling software is smart
Many businesses have already discovered the benefits of using digital storytelling to truly speak to the customer, but many are still getting started with storytelling. As businesses start to recognize more ways of using digital storytelling to stimulate interest and engage with audiences, the investment in digital storytelling software becomes a prudent one.
Digital storytelling software has the obvious benefit of ensuring that AV technology continues to deliver new value with fresh digital storytelling experiences. However, this software also has the possibility of being used to solve other common issues surrounding the management of digital media. Not all apps or platforms are the same, but some are cloud-based solutions that are constantly being updated with new capabilities. These are among the smartest investments in tech that companies can make.
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