It’s easy to forget when you’re browsing the web that it’s a technical environment. The design, hosting and distribution of web content depends on an ecosystem of hardware, software and code that the typical user is barely aware of. There was a time when getting content onto the web was also quite technical, but thankfully, content management systems (CMSs) and video CMSs now mean that’s rarely the case.
The widespread use of CMSs like WordPress and Shopify mean that anyone can add to, edit or manage a website. With less need to learn or train people up in code, a CMS means you can focus on creating the best environment to showcase your products or services, and to market your business. Extendable and flexible, a CMS usually makes it easy to make fundamental changes to the style or functionality of a site, all without racking up extensive development costs.
Limitations of popular CMSs
But while popular CMSs make easy work of text content, they leave much to be desired when it comes to managing rich media. Typically offering only limited upload management, and hard-to-browse gallery views, CMSs can make it hard for creators to upload and index files, and for collaborators and web visitors to search and find existing content.
If you want to let users browse and search your media archive, or offer them secure previews and automated licensing options, you’re going to need a platform built for the job – a video CMS that can integrate with and augment your current systems.
What are the benefits of a video CMS?
1. Better content management
This might seem like a no brainer for a content management system, but it’s an important benefit. A video CMS is designed to help you store, organise, search and retrieve content. As such, it’s a crucial tool to help manage a rich media archive. It’s also there to help you keep track of how and where your content appears, and how it performs. Features like video analytics can give you data on how videos are consumed, for example, giving a view over content performance and insight to guide content strategy and commissioning decisions.
2. Simplicity
Content management systems are designed to insulate users from the technical details of storing, sharing and modifying content. Where a general-purpose CMS frees non-technical users to create and work with the web, a video CMS helps simplify the sharing and distribution of video. This simplicity makes it easy for production teams to work collaboratively, and prevents homebrewed and insecure solutions – such as resorting to freemium file-sharing services.
3. Security
Video production is rarely a solo effort. With multiple contributors and partners needing access to media, it’s important to protect precious IP while sharing it to the teams working on it. A video CMS allows you to manage access for different users and groups, setting roles and permissions to give each the appropriate level of control. The same applies when distributing previews, or promoting, selling or licensing the finished product. A video CMS ensures that you can open up access and monetise videos while retaining control at all times.
4. Maximum accessibility
There’s no point having a huge video archive if you don’t have the tools to find what you need inside it. A video CMS provides essential features to help classify, organise, search and retrieve content. These might include metadata creation tools to help you categorise content, or time-based metadata tags that help you describe it. Crucially, these are paired with powerful search features which can be used by content owners or customers to find the content they need.
5. Simple design changes
Any CMS allows you to change the look and layout of your website independently of its content, and a video CMS has the same benefit. For brands, this means that video portals can be designed to match the branding of the wider site, presenting content seamlessly within external or internal web pages. In leading video CMSs, easy ‘out of the box’ themes allow for quick customisation. Detailed options, meanwhile, might let you drill down and alter the design of website components, such as media players, to match your site’s design exactly.
6. Streamline workflows
A video CMS can make a big contribution to streamlining video and rich media production and distribution. Features such as format conversion, file distribution and social media publishing can become the building blocks of automated workflows. This dramatically improves the efficiency of time-consuming video production or distribution processes.
7. Complete control
Instead of relying on third-party plugins or an external contractor, a video CMS means that you are in complete control of the way your business creates, distributes and monetises video content. You have the freedom to assign tasks and roles, upload, index and publish videos, and make the design or workflow changes you want.
Additionally, you have the dashboards and reporting tools you need to help you understand video performance and viewer behaviour. Informed by comprehensive analytics, you can make commissioning, editing and distribution decisions that maximise your content performance.
The right CMS tool for the job
Just as a CMS is essential to managing today’s complex websites, a video CMS is fundamental to exerting proper control over your rich media content. Offering far more sophistication than general-purpose media management features and plugins, a video CMS puts you in the driving seat for all your content, and helps make your website a powerful and invaluable business tool.
Imagen provides content managers, video production companies, distributors and licensing businesses with a scalable, cloud-based and secure video solution. Discover more about our platform’s powerful video CMS features, or contact us to discover what we could do for you.
