In today’s increasingly online world, much of our everyday lives has become less tangible as we strive to embrace the digital landscape. Especially in business and marketing, digital media is a driving force in the effectiveness and success of your overall strategy. If you’re learning to navigate this shift, you may have questions about digital assets and their role in pushing your business forward.
Here at Stacks, our goal is to make digital asset management easier and more accessible. That all starts with digital assets! We created this resource to guide you through the complexities and nuances associated with media assets and the digital files your organization manages.
In this piece, we’ll provide a high-level overview of digital assets. We’ll explore what is considered a digital asset, examine the core components, and discuss their importance. We will also examine how your organization can utilize its digital assets to enhance its business operations.
Continue reading to learn:
- What a digital asset is
- Examples of digital assets
- What they’re used for
- Why they’re important
- How to efficiently store digital assets
- How to help your team find and access digital assets
What Is A Digital Asset?
A digital asset is any file or information containing inherent value to an individual or organization that is stored in a digital format. This means any file owned by an entity that contains graphics, text, video, and other media in a digital format is defined as a digital asset.
A common misconception when attempting to define “digital asset” is to only include creative files used for marketing and promotion. In other words, many believe that a digital asset is only defined as material intended for platforms like websites, social media, or digital advertising. This is not the case, as any file providing value that is stored digitally is considered a digital asset.
The term digital asset can be used to describe financial digital assets like cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other types of tokenized securities. This resource focuses solely on digital assets related to business and marketing and will not cover financial digital assets.
Digital Asset Examples
Now that we’ve established a definition, let’s talk about some real-world examples of digital assets that you may see every day.
Some of the most common types of files considered digital media assets include:
- Images
- Videos
- Graphics and logo designs
- Audio files
- Documents
- PDFs
- 3D models
- Animations
- Web pages and coding
While some of these assets are more complex than others, much of the media that we interact with daily is made up of these files.
Some examples of these assets in context may include:
- Social media posts and graphics: When content is posted on social media, it serves as a valuable asset for building an online presence and substantiating a brand.
- Company logos and marketing materials: Be it online or offline, these assets are crucial to establishing a brand image and promoting authority.
- Audio files: Music, sound effects, podcast audio, and other files are important assets for maintaining consistent branding and improving user experience.
- Instructional resources and how-to guides: Even if something like a how-to guide or instruction manual is distributed in a physical format, digital assets such as pictures, text files, and logos play an enormous role.
- Spreadsheets and databases: Important data contained in internal documents like spreadsheets, presentations, and data caches can be extremely valuable to an organization.
What Are Digital Assets Used For?
Digital assets are used to add value to an organization. This value can come in many forms depending on the asset. Some uses for digital assets include:
- Marketing and branding: Properly managing and centralizing media materials like photos, videos, logos, and campaign documents promotes effective operations and streamlined marketing efforts.
- Organizational development: Cloud storage and digital asset management allow for internal documents and important data to be easily shared with individuals, departments, and collaborators.
- Print advertisements and promotional materials: Even though they’re physical materials, creating print advertisements and other promotional materials depends on digital assets. From written copy to images used and overall design, digital assets formulate all physical promo materials.
Ultimately, digital assets promote the safe and secure exchange of items of value through the internet with centralized control. This means that, especially in the digital age, digital assets are very important to the functionality of any organization.
Why Are Digital Media Assets Important?
In the rapidly expanding information age, an enormous portion of our lives occurs in the digital world. For this reason, the importance of digital assets cannot be understated.
The accessibility of these assets allows for faster transfers, greater transparency, and better operational enhancement overall. Whether you’re running a business, leading a department, or simply trying to manage your personal files, understanding effective digital asset management is crucial in the digital age.
Understanding the inner workings of digital asset management can help:
- Streamline workflows with effective systems. By optimizing assets and creating efficiencies, you create a workflow that enables success for all team members.
- Promote consistent and clear branding. Between documents like brand guides and templates, as well as standardized logos and other important files, digital assets ensure your brand identity is defined and intentional.
- Improve inter-departmental collaboration. Sharing digital assets between departments allows you to maximize the value of your assets and encourage collaboration between team members.
- Enrich your organization’s communication strategy. A robust, well-kept digital asset library helps your organization make an impact.
How To Efficiently Store Digital Assets
While the capabilities are impressive, knowing how to efficiently store and manage your digital assets is just as important as knowing what they are in the first place. An effective file management system can help to avoid overwhelm due to file volume, updates, and technological changes.
To maintain a proper inventory of your assets, there are some key components to keep in mind:
- Establish a Clear System
- Consistently Structure Files
- Use DAM Software
1. Establish a Clear System
Establishing a clear system for naming and organizing digital assets is essential to promoting and streamlining a time-efficient management system. Improved searchability through simplified file names allows for ease of access when files need to be distributed, shared, or moved.
Creating a standardized file naming convention helps your team spend less time naming files and searching for them.
2. Consistently Structure Files
Consistently structuring files in a way that makes sense for your organization will greatly facilitate the accessibility of assets for everyone within your organization. Especially when data is shared via cloud storage, ensuring all users are on the same page about what information can be found where is paramount.
3. Use DAM Software
After an effective system has been developed, it’s instrumental to make use of digital asset management (DAM) software to implement proper organization of your library. This is the gateway to maintaining a centralized ecosystem for all of your valuable digital files to exist securely and optimally in a format that is practical within your organization.
How Can You Help Your Team Find and Access Digital Assets?
There are several elements that are integral to ensuring your digital assets are both easily accessible and navigable within their management system. Not only does having a central storage location greatly increase accessibility, but maintaining a practice of detailed labeling opens the door to creating a clear, understandable hierarchy of assets.
There are two key components and steps to follow that optimize the accessibility of your digital assets:
- Utilizing metadata to provide context
- Creating a logical taxonomy
Utilizing Metadata to Provide Context
Metadata is all the descriptive information behind images, videos, web pages, design files, or other digital media. It’s used to provide as much detail and context about a digital asset within the provided fields.
There are three main categories of metadata:
- Descriptive metadata. Information that describes the content of an asset. This type of metadata helps with the discoverability of assets. Examples of descriptive metadata include:
- Title
- Author/creator
- Description
- Identifying number
- Administrative metadata. Information used to manage assets, which helps organizations improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their digital asset management. Examples of administrative metadata include:
- File type
- Size
- Creation date
- Copyright information
- Structural metadata. Information that describes how an asset is composed and how it relates to other assets. This type of metadata helps provide context for assets that work together or have some sort of connection. Examples of structural metadata include:
- File size
- Image dimensions
- A chapter of a book or a magazine article
- Version number
Proper and complete metadata management is essential to establishing DAM standards. It makes your files easily searchable and accessible for your team, allowing you to get the most out of your digital assets.
Creating a Logical Taxonomy
Taxonomy in digital asset management refers to a defined hierarchical organizational structure used to store and manage files. A well-organized taxonomy categorizes assets and the metadata associated with them into intuitive groups.
To establish a strategic hierarchy for your files, it’s helpful to start with large, broad categories and work down.
Ultimately, taking the time to clearly label and intuitively organize your assets within a digital media asset management system proactively promotes productivity through all aspects of your organization.
Maximize Your Digital Assets With Stacks!
Digital assets that meet the criteria described above are incredibly valuable and should be managed in a manner that is proportionate to the value that they provide. Digital assets directly lead to organizational growth, efficiency, productivity, and hopefully, increased revenue. The impact of properly (or improperly) managing these files is felt across many parts of an organization.
If you have identified that your organization has digital assets, the next step is to determine how your organization currently manages them. Once you peel back the curtain and start looking into this, you may realize that your organization does not organize them at all!
Alternatively, your assets could be managed with an outdated or ineffective organizational system. The sooner you are aware of how your digital assets are being managed, the sooner you can optimize your systems for greater efficiency.
If you need help figuring out how to start gathering your assets, finding a DAM platform, evaluating your current DAM systems, or need some therapy to fix a mess that is the current DAM system, contact Stacks! We’re in the business of making your digital assets work for you.
