If you’re struggling to find enough media to keep your posts flowing, consider these factors before you set off to create the next batch.
Visual media takes time and money to dream up and produce, so being able to use it more than once is vital for both your brand and your budget sheet. But in real life, it’s harder than we expect to create and organise reusable assets; only a third of the organizations surveyed this year by the Content Marketing Institute could ‘strongly agree’ that they found it easy.
Many of our content creator customers have mentioned how easy it is to neglect two critical periods outside the gathering window itself. First there’s the run-up, when briefs are generated to keep everyone on the same page – and then there’s the immediate aftermath, when the finished material needs to be organised in a way that helps future teams make sense of it. Keeping the following factors in mind during these times will help you end up with a greater range of assets, versatile enough to support all kinds and scales of activity.
1. Check in with colleagues
Are there any quick wins to be had by asking other teams if there’s anything in their calendar that could benefit from your upcoming shoot? While it’s important to be wary of scope creep, it’s never a bad thing to identify any minor adjustments that would end up helping the wider organisation. It’s often a great way to top up your project budget, too!
Even if you’re not responsible for creating content for all your company’s platforms and channels, it also helps to make sure you’re up to speed with the most prevalent imagery and footage – just in case the opportunity to do something to suit pops up.
2. Go wide, go plain – but crop later.
Quite a few photographers approach shots with their crop already in mind, as if what they’re capturing is going straight into a frame on a wall. However, a professional with a good DSLR camera should be able to accommodate an advance request to maximise backgrounds (but listen to them if they say it can’t be done, certain depths of field will make it tricky).
For even more flexibility in the finished item, brief the photographer or videographer to look for a plain background or two as these clear expanses allow the addition of text without interfering with visual accessibility. These sorts of compositions may feel oddly minimalist when they’re being captured but if your website uses overlaid header images or report and brochure designs rely on impactful, full-bleed covers, it’s worth taking a leap of faith. And if your organisation has a logo with certain background requirements, mention that too and share previous examples.
3. Don’t forget the ‘boring’ bits.
It’s easy to zone in on getting the most impactful images and footage; after all, those are what you’ll put to work in your campaigns. However, the real versatility – the ability to A/B test alternative videos or fill multi-page layouts with consistent imagery – comes from adding more seemingly neutral footage or photos to the mix.
In video, this is known as ‘B-roll’, but the idea is just as useful for photography. It’s worth taking some time to think about additional concepts that give wider context to a viewer, once the key shots are captured. Location, building and signage shots; subjects depicted in more informal, spontaneous poses; and shots of tools, materials or hands at work – whatever backs up your main shots.
4. Take audiences behind the scenes
Sometimes the creation itself can tell a story – especially on social media where you need audiences to engage with your brand on a more day-to-day level. As long as you’re self-aware enough to filter out what matters to you from what might appeal to your audiences, there’s a rich seam of content to be mined for ‘auxiliary’ social posting or even internal comms.
It helps to let all participants know in advance to look out for opportunities on the day, as mobiles can do this job almost as well as professional devices. More casual snaps of someone being filmed, or a clip of them being miked up; a row of props or a hint of the products themselves, if you’re allowed. Even stop-motion footage of say, set assembly or technical setup can add interest to your feeds when captured with a phone.
5. Make it findable
Once you’ve used any of the last four ideas to create a wider range of brilliant, more versatile content, here’s where the opportunity lies to make sure it doesn’t vanish after its debut, impossible to locate by anyone who might benefit from using it again. The addition of a little metadata – keywords, location details, etc – means an asset stored under just one or two criteria (usually just its file name and/or the folder structure in which it sits) can be found based on hundreds more.
With metadata, people don’t even need to know a specific asset exists to find it. Take our customers at The Royal Albert Hall, who regularly search by certain dates to get content for a steady stream of cost-effective ‘On This Day In History’ posts. “For example,” Digital Manager Matt Griffin told us, “a quick search for ‘8 May’ gives us shots of Laura Mvula in 2017, Pavarotti in 1995, boxing in 1991, a concert for The Queen Mother in 1963 and some angry correspondence from 1899 about us hosting concerts on a Sunday!”
We hope these tips help you get closer to a bank of useful assets that works for different teams, across multiple platforms and channels, and with minimal effort – mainly because that’s what we’re all about. It’s why we created Chorus: a solution for people who need a more powerful way to control, protect and maximise their content. The digital asset management software of choice for a wide range of marketing and creative teams, which also supports work-in-progress production.
If you’d like to explore your content management or workflow goals with one of our friendly, helpful experts, just ask@thirdlight.co.uk. -You can arrange a quick chat, book a demo or find out how your team can try it yourselves for free.
About Third Light
We are an award-winning software company that gives marketing and creative teams worldwide the solutions that put time back in their busy lives. Our next-generation digital asset management platform, Chorus, help teams to create media then sync, store and share it, quickly and easily – wherever they’re working from.