• by Eric Courville , December 11, 2012

Remember when marketers were only responsible for small amounts of branding content that they distributed via print, TV ads, and radio spots? Times are rapidly changing. Today there are a growing number of social media channels -- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn -- to consider as a marketer, in addition to the traditional channels.

According to a recent study, social media accounts for only 16 percent of customer engagement today, but is expected to increase to 57 percent within five years. Today's brands are accumulating an enormous amount of visual content that they are struggling to manage. The combination of these factors has become an obstacle for brands to effectively engage with customers.

First, it can be difficult for marketers to know the right piece of content to share with the right customers -- especially now when many of them are grappling with the globalization of their brands while still providing localized and targeted interactions. They are creating the animated graphics, images and videos that are being retouched and reused in numerous locations across an organization. The inability to accurately manage this workflow properly can cost millions of dollars in rights management lawsuits, redundant work, unbillable time and weak brand reputation. As a result, brands are facing a serious challenge: how to accurately track, distribute and manage all their digital content.

Second, marketers must address countless media channels, from direct to social. A brand’s method of interacting with consumers is becoming more dynamic and consumers now have more of a say in how they want to be approached. Today’s consumers are liking Facebook pages, following company Twitter handles, subscribing to email newsletters, and overall sharing brand content like never before. As a result, marketers are constantly looking for new ways to grab customers’ attention and maximize the impact of the content they are sharing across every channel, in real-time.

The solution in most cases is better brand management. Marketers today need to consider investing in rich content management solutions to address their massive amounts of media assets in an organized fashion. Understanding the benefits of these solutions, beyond IT, will help brand stewards better reach their marketing goals at a global level and also protect the reputation of their brand. These solutions provide a way to move visual content, like a video, through a creative process workflow and then efficiently store and manage that finalized video for easy use throughout an organization.

Marketers can also quickly respond to changing content demands and avoid duplicating efforts by quickly locating assets in a centralized repository for reuse. Imagine the time and money saved when a marketer does not have to recreate a graphic for use on a Facebook page, but can quickly pull up the stored graphic they used on the Web site, knowing it’s the most up-to-date version and they have the right to use it. Having fresh, timely content at the fingertips of all authorized, customer-facing employees all over the world is crucial, given the real-time demands of consumers.

The key for marketers is delivering the right message through the right channel to the right people at the right time. It’s about connecting with your customers and today, it’s about doing that visually. This fundamental strategy will not change -- but how marketers achieve it will. Brand stewards need to understand the benefits of creating, tracking, monetizing, and distributing visual content in an organized manner. Doing so will help them more effectively meet business needs -- and more importantly, will also improve their opportunities for meaningful engagement with consumers.