We recently headed to New York City for Henry Stewart Events’ DAM NY, a gathering of vendors, industry experts, marketers and others looking to share and learn about digital asset management software, best practices and more.

Turns out that some attendees were busy doing some thumb workouts, tweeting intensely to keep the Interwebs updated on the most valuable insights that were coming out of discussions at DAM NY. Here is a collection of some of our favorites:

@TheresaRegli — Biggest crowd here ever, indeed: RT @damfoundation: #DAMNY big crowd at the event, about time

@cmswire — Theresa Regli -technology alone will not be the solution, you need DAM expertise to drive the solution #DAMNY #henrystewartdam

@DrDAM — Products vs. Platforms – Platforms are customizable, Products are configurable http://ow.ly/aPh2W – New to DAM? #DAMNY

@AYakkundi — Technology isn’t the silver bullet RT @DrDAM DAM is only 20% tech. People make it a success for your organization #DAMNY

@jhorodyski — 90% of the information in the world is unstructured #dam #damny

@pammylalala — Mediafication of business positions DAM as central to growth of companies. Is your company investing? #DAMNY

@WidenEnterprise — How to go about training your DAM users? Check out “Tips for Promoting Your Digital Asset Management System” http://ow.ly/aPCCA #DAMNY

@joebachana — IMHO, integration of DAM with other technologies is pretty much the whole point of getting a DAM #DAMNY

@jhorodyski — DAM is a business transformation opportunity #DAMNY #DAM

@dsalons — #InfoSec meet the #DAM industry-> #BYOD (bring your own device) security and ownership issues recognized at #DAMNY.

@DrDAM — Implementing DAM? Start present day and move forward, not backward. Go back in time as you need / have time. #DAMNY

@DrDAM — As always, thank you for bringing clarity & perspective to the much fragmented vendor landscape at #DAMNY

@davidriecks — RT @DrDAM “You shouldn’t plant it if you don’t want to eat it” — good gardening analogy for metadata #DAMNY

@jhorodyski — As DAM vendors, we need to stay with your needs! #damny #dam

@dsalons — “more content is uploaded to YouTube in one month, than the amount of programming created the first 60 years of television” #DAMNY

@DrDAM — Do you rely on the analytics or users (for metadata development)? It’s really a combination of both, but developed for the customer #DAMNY

Are you on Twitter? Do you tweet about DAM, marketing, metadata or other related things? Follow us at @DigitalAssetMgt and share your DAM thoughts with us!

We’ve also got some great white papers in our reseource center. If you’re really ready for a deep dive, check out our DAM software demo options.

To increase the likelihood of being visited by potential clients, websites have done everything from stuffing pages with keywords to creating a barrage of back-links. Although those tricks worked during the early days of search engines, as search algorithms improved, they became a lot better at coming up with pages that truly reflected searches. Websites that utilized insincere, SEO parlor tricks were thrown out of the results, and optimizing pages for the search engines became more of a refined art. Content could contain search terms in the title and body of articles but too many could exclude them from the results.

Even though the search engines weren’t revealing their methodologies, it was pretty evident that they were becoming better at coming up with “naturally good” results. That doesn’t spell the end of SEO; it just means that brands should put as much of their focus on content quality as they do on search optimization. This extends into your digital asset management practices. For example, instead of giving a generic name like “presentation” to a slide show that was used at a conference, give it a name that is more specific and descriptive. This will not only help your internal staff and marketing partners to find the asset when they’re looking for it in the DAM system; it will also help ensure that that asset is making a valuable contribution to the SEO of whatever pages it appears on.

These small details can determine whether or not your assets and web pages show up in searches, so it’s worth doing at least a cursory “audit” of your digital asset library to ensure that your asset filenames are helping the SEO cause.

Of course, it’s important for your organization to have some kind of DAM software to support these efforts. Take a look at our DAM demo options to get a sense for what at least one DAM system could do for your brand.

According to eMarketer, the highest number of smartphone users are 25 to 55 years old. This makes sense when you consider that this age bracket includes a higher percentage of people who can afford smartphones, use them for work, and are probably more familiar with computer technology than folks in older age brackets. However, eMarketer also states that a higher percentage of people in a younger age bracket will probably become smartphone users in a couple of years as prices for these devices drop. They also mention that an increase in smartphone use will also be demonstrated by an older age bracket.

In short, a lot more people are going to start using smartphones in the next couple of years no matter which demographic they belong to. One essential means of being prepared for the increase in smartphone use is acquiring digital asset management tools that make it easier to connect with users of smartphones and other mobile devices. While the software itself doesn’t actually reach out and connect with the your audiences’ smartphones, it makes it far easier to manage the quantity and types of assets you need to engage those people wherever they are.

For example, a typical digital asset library might include a series of videos, various branded images, and other documents that will inform, entertain, and help to sell products and services. The best digital asset management programs solve these and other time-related issues by making it simple to quickly and efficiently distribute digital assets, especially when the DAM software handles file conversions automatically to suit whatever needs you or your partners have.

To experience how brand asset management software can help your company connect with smartphone users, check out the different ways you can experience our demo DAM system.

Facebook in particular is the site that companies are most concerned with. It looks like a marketing goldmine, but extracting that 24 carat ore can be elusive and problematic. We are learning more about how to achieve success in these spaces, though. For instance, the marketing agency Web Liquid found that posts with images and videos had the highest degree of engagement. Images saw an engagement rate of .37 percent while that of videos was .31 percent. In contrast, comments and “likes” for text-only posts and links saw engagement rates of .27 percent and .15 percent, respectively.

Another study carried out by Momentus Media showed similar results. They also discovered that Facebook status updates with words such as “like” or “comment” saw much more engagement than posts not using these words.

What these studies tell us about marketing with Facebook is that images and online video content could be the most productive way to engage and interact with our audiences. People are more likely to say something about visual posts rather than posts that merely include a link. The Momentus Media study also indicates that companies will see more engagement if they just ask for it. In other words, reminding users to leave a comment or “like” a photo or other post will result in more engagement.

The more engagement on Facebook, the better. This is especially true now that Facebook algorithms make content from pages that see less engagement less visible in news feeds. If people don’t feel any reason to interact with your posts or page, your content will begin to fade from view. With that in mind, make sure to post images and videos on Facebook, but don’t forget those simple call-to-action statements.

Learn more about how digital asset management software can be used with social media with white papers available at our resource center.

There are very good reasons that explain why the cloud has become so popular for so many applications. Some of these reasons include:

Software savings — Working in the cloud tends to be cheaper than buying customized software and programs to be installed on office computers. Cloud-based programs have already been engineered so you don’t need to pay a software designer to build your solution from scratch.

Maintenance — When someone else is hosting the program, your IT people don’t need to worry about fixing it. The people who host the application are entirely responsible for that aspect of the product.

Service — Cloud-based applications don’t necessarily provide service as part of their product but most do. It only makes sense that service is included in so many cloud-based applications because the people who created and host the program are the ones who know it the best. They can easily provide optimal service and so they include it as part of their product.

As with most applications, cloud-based platforms are where digital asset management tools are headed. Plenty of DAM systems already function in the cloud and demonstrate why this platform works much better for the management of digital assets than in-house solutions. See these white papers dealing with DAM software to learn more about how DAM systems manage assets in the cloud.

However, no DAM system will automatically enable every user to immediately find the exact asset they are looking for. That may sound contradictory but, the ability for users to find assets in any DAM system is entirely dependent on metadata.

Metadata refers to the information used in the categorization of assets. It’s searchable, adaptable, and is just as valuable as your digital assets. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that metadata needs to be carefully updated on a regular basis. Here are a few reasons why:

Marketing dynamics — Changes in your target market result in different strategies that may need to incorporate different types of assets. Videos and other assets that had been assigned metadata suitable for marketing one year ago might not be sufficiently categorized for present situations. For example, what if your marketing analysts discovered that fifteen minute videos worked significantly better than five minute videos, but there was no metadata to demonstrate this? You wouldn’t be able to specifically search for video assets of the ideal length because this factor was not included in the metadata.

Old assets are still valuable assets — Just because assets are a few years old and have never been used doesn’t mean that they have lost their worth. You never know when those documents or images will suddenly become extremely useful. For this reason, you have to make sure that their associated metadata is just as up to date as videos fresh off the production line.

Metadata can be misleading — Not all metadata works out as you had hoped. System users might not incorporate certain search words and phrases, or they might end up with unwanted assets. Regular updates of metadata help to weed out such misleading information.

The key to quickly finding assets with any digital asset management tools hinges on the metadata used to catalog them. Keep that metadata updated to stay adaptable in rapidly changing markets. See these white papers to learn more about the role of metadata in digital asset management programs.

Help in setting up the system — Since a DAM system plays such a central role, it’s best to trust the implementation process to people who not only know what they’re doing, but also are willing and able to work with you throughout. This ensures a DAM foundation that’s optimized for efficiency, with your workflows in mind.

System updates — While every type of software needs occasional updates, media asset management tools might need to be updated more often to keep up with the rapidly changing dynamics of the Internet and other technologies. Companies that purchase Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) DAM systems don’t need to be concerned about seeing updates through because SaaS vendors generally issue those at no extra charge, and they don’t require updates to hardware or installed software.

Metadata — The way assets are tagged and categorized determines the ease with which they can be found. That’s why it’s so important to put thought into designing and implementing your metadata scheme. Vendors that offer SaaS DAM can provide guidance for choosing the right type of metadata.

To learn more about the benefits of coupling customer service with online digital asset management, see these DAM white papers.

Time is running out to register for Henry Stewart Events’ DAM NY.  It’s the first of Henry Stewart’s DAM events in 2012.

Once again, in New York City on May 10th & 11th, we inaugurate this year’s DAM conferences.   The reach of our digital asset management community continues to expand – your growth as professionals and soon-to-be-professionals in DAM is our continuing goal.

In New York City we’ll facilitate a lively exchange among conference participants. We’ll have panel sessions, breakout groups, enhanced networking environments, round table workshops, case study reviews and, of course, formal talks. There will be multiple opportunities to take away lessons learned and knowledge of best practices. Whatever your area or level of expertise you will have the opportunity to meet new peers – a key objective in all our planning. The conference starts with a welcoming reception the night before the formal program begins, and, as always, we’ll host the very best in specialized intensive tutorials – all led by renowned experts.

As with other DAM events, this will be a great opportunity not just for those who are looking for new DAM systems, but also for those who want to learn how to get more out of their existing systems. There will be a slew of great speakers and plenty of chances to get in instructive discussion on the hottest topics in digital asset management software.

Here’s a video from Henry Stewart about some of the other benefits of attending:

All the information you need is on the event’s website. Register today and let us know what you learned after you go to the conference.

So rather than take webinar attendees through a deep dive into each of those topics, Widen decided to touch on each, highlighting what seemed like the essential points. The complete webinar is available for you to watch here.

As you’ll see, Al Falaschi, who led the webinar,knows his stuff. He has plenty of experience guiding Widen DAM customers through the process of figuring out how to manage their video assets, so he’s attuned to the needs of all kinds of marketing organizations and others. Whether it’s understanding vodeo codecs, HTML5 or best practices for metadata, this webinar is a good first step to make sure you’re getting the most out of your VAM processes.

Take a look at the webinar and let us know what you’d like to see covered next time.

Widen's Al Falaschi leads the video asset management webinar as Jake Athey moderates the online discussion

• Better segmentation — When a target market can be divided into distinct groups, appropriate messages and campaigns can be developed to more effectively connect with each of these groups. As opposed to sending out a generalized message that reaches a large number of people, but appeals to a small percentage, targeted messages are sent to and designed for particular segments. The end result is more accurate and productive marketing. A DAM system helps in this regard by making it easier to categorize assets according to factors related to segments of target markets. The centralized control over assets also makes for quick and accurate development of campaigns that specifically target certain groups of people.
• Social channels — Social media is hugely important for marketing because large numbers of potential customers use these platforms on a daily basis. The user-driven aspect of social media also makes them ideal platforms for directly interacting with people associated with specific target markets. Social media is hugely popular, can reach a global audience and has become a key component of most modern-day marketing strategies. Quick access to a large number of digital assets goes hand-in-hand with social media dynamics because a wide variety of images, video content, and other digital assets are needed to maintain and build relationships with potential clients. The quick and easy access to a categorized corporate image library provided by a DAM system makes it easy for users to share content on social media sites. This is especially true of DAM systems with features that let users directly upload and share content to Facebook and other social media sites.
• Increase relevancy with dynamic content — This refers to content that is automatically placed into mobile, print, email, and other campaigns based on factors associated with the recipient of the content. In doing so, the marketing message is much more relevant to the user and thus has a higher chance of conversion. DAM systems with good metadata functions aid dynamic content campaigns by reducing the time needed to accurately identify assets suited for particular market segments. The latest generation of digital media asset management also makes it possible to design integrations that automatically capture appropriate content from DAM systems.

To learn about how a DAM system can help with these and other marketing priorities, take a look at our collection of free white papers.