5 Tips to Create and Manage Visual Content

Visual content is being used in a variety of ways to communicate. Large amounts of data are being packaged into easily consumable infographics. Videos are being used to tell dynamic stories. Even consumers, knowingly or not, are in on the visual content creation with sharing pictures of their interaction with products and brands. All of this content needs to be managed in order to be shared and used. Get the most out of your visual content with these 5 tips for managing visual content.

Maintain quality in content and format. Quality content is what captures people's attention and inspires people to share it with others. A stunning photograph of a social issue can say more than a 1,000 word essay would for a non-profit. Images can create an instant emotional connection that resonates with the viewer.

In order for the quality of your content to shine, you must maintain the quality of the file format. That stunning photograph won't look so stunning if you used a lo-res JPEG for the cover of your brochure. Understand the best practices for file formats and file conversions to maintain crisp, clean looking visual content on any medium.

Keep it all together. If you work on a team with multiple visual content creators and multiple people who use those visual content files, central organization is crucial. It keeps your files accessible to the whole team the moment they are added, maintains consistency in content, and prevents time and energy lost to duplicate content creation.

Take advantage of an online storage solution to keep all of your visual content accessible from anywhere. Your sales team can show some new product photography while on the road with a prospect customer and you can share social content even when you aren't at your desk.

Use file naming conventions. An important part of keeping your files organized is using proper naming conventions. Using IMG1490139 for a photograph does not provide any value. Creating clear, descriptive yet concise titles provides valuable information on what the content is. It also helps optimize your content for search. Pair that descriptive title with a naming convention to keep your content uniform to help organization.

Provide visual content guidelines. Not all visual content is to be used the same. Some files should be treated differently than others based on their content and purpose. Make sure you provide guidelines so your visual content is used properly and consistently. This information should be available to all who have access to share and distribute your visual content.

Control access. Obviously, visual content is most effective when seen. But it's important to control access to who can edit, view, download and share what. Unreleased files should remain private until released. Updating files should only be available to those designated to do so.

Create a hierarchical structure that gives users just the amount of access they need and no more. This will guide proper management of your visual content. Also, users won't be afraid to mess things up if they don't have that the level of access to do so.

For your content to be most effective, it must be properly managed. What best practices does your organization use to manage visual content?

This guest contribution was written by Nate Holmes of Smartimage.