In 2020, 85% of businesses use video as a tool in their marketing strategy. That’s because video works — it can increase traffic, leads, sales, and audience understanding. But, it only works at an enterprise level if you store and distribute your videos strategically.  

Video content continues to grow in popularity and importance among marketers. According to research from Wyzowl, 89% feel video marketing results in positive ROI — up from 33% in 2015 — because it has the ability to increase traffic, leads, sales, and audience understanding. Further, faster connection speeds and improved hardware make daily video consumption the norm.

Because video assets are increasingly vital to current marketing strategies, this content needs to be managed effectively throughout its lifecycle. Let’s take a closer look at how the right technology can extend the reach and value of video content across phases — including archiving.

For over a decade, video has been the rising star of marketing. First gaining speed back in 2005 alongside the launch of YouTube, video has managed to climb the ranks to near-celebrity status with enterprises around the globe. With 87% of businesses now using video as a marketing tool — up from 63% in 2017 — it begs to question why video is so popular.

Are businesses just blindly following trends or are their investments in the creation, management, and distribution of video assets more deeply rooted? Let’s have a look. 

By now, it’s no surprise that video is a popular marketing tool for brands. The numbers are staggering. YouTube has over 1.9 billion users. A whopping 87% of businesses use video content. And, here’s a fun one — Cisco estimates that by 2021 it will take an individual over 5 million years to watch all the video that’s uploaded to the web in a single month.

So yes, video is popular. But, just because brands use it and people watch it, doesn’t make all video effective. Video for the sake of video won’t cut it, which is why the savviest of marketers have set their sights on what’s called “branded video.” 

Media asset management (MAM) is sometimes used interchangeably with digital asset management (DAM). They both help manage assets, but are they really the same thing? Sort of…

When implementing a digital asset management (DAM) system, you begin by adding the typical mix of marketing assets, such as images, logos, pdfs, documents, etc. Most of these file types are familiar to the average marketer, until you get to video. Because video files are much larger and more complex than other media files, we are frequently asked, “What’s the best video format to upload into my DAM?”

Creating engaging videos that support business objectives is a challenge. And working with videos doesn’t get any easier after they are finished.

Videos are massive files which makes sharing and viewing them using email attachments essentially impossible. Cloud-based DAM systems like the Widen Collective® support video storage, sharing, and viewing. But treating videos just like images and other assets doesn’t provide the best experience for these powerful assets.

Nikki Lebenson Angulo is a digital communications manager at the Institute of International Education (IIE), which is one of the largest and oldest global nonprofit organizations that administers and manages programs to support international exchange, like The Fulbright Program. They also work with governments around the world to promote the benefits of exchange.

Nikki’s position is critical in helping communicate the value of these programs with visual content that is published on the web, social media and through more traditional methods like newsletters.

Centria is a leading global manufacturer of design and architectural wall paneling used in the construction industry. They’re on the cutting edge of architectural system building technology with a wide variety of products touting advanced thermal and moisture protection technology. Chelsea Rommes is the media and content coordinator at Centria and is the global admin of their Widen Collective site. They rely heavily on their digital asset management (DAM) system to collect images of newly-completed jobs and tag them with the proper metadata so they can be easily found and repurposed by their sales team.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst (otherwise known as UMass Amherst or simply UMass) is the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system. With approximately 1,300 faculty members and more than 29,000 students, UMass Amherst is the largest public university in New England and is ranked the 29th best public university in the nation. The university has also entrusted the Widen Media Collective to manage and distribute its most important branded and historical visual imagery. We had a chance to sit down with Maile Thiesen, global administrator of the UMass image library, to talk about the university’s past journey in digital asset management (DAM) and where they hope to go in the future with the Media Collective.