When was the last time finding a file for work became a tedious subplot to your day? Maybe it wasn't an entire ordeal, but over time it adds up.
One study by GISTICs estimated creative professionals spend an average of 1 out of 10 hours of their time on file management. This includes searching, organizing and backing up files. Searches alone account for a full third of that time. With those tasks spread out across multiple people, salary wise that’s the equivalent of an average of $8,200 per year per person.
The same study found the average creative person looks for a file 83 times per week and can’t find an asset 35% of the time. Imagine being able to drastically reduce that percentage so you aren't re-editing video and wasting time replicating the same work.
Here are more big reasons why video teams are using media asset management (MAM) systems for effective team collaboration.
Before MAM systems became more widely popular, source files were strewn across hard drives, emails, and Dropbox with different versions spread across each source. A MAM lets you tag the latest and greatest version of your digital media so everything is more easily searchable, and some of them (like Wipster) even layer the versions on top of each other so that you have a clear, auditable trail of versions and changes.
Unless you’re naturally organized, finding the right files even on your personal hard drive can be difficult. Once you have a team of folks, the need to get a specific video quickly becomes even more essential so people aren’t spending hours hunting down assets.
Working within a team minus a MAM system, someone ends up reluctantly becoming the gatekeeper to hold footage and/or hard drives. This creates a bottleneck where you have a tag manager or someone else stretched across multiple roles allocating their time sending footage to members of your team. We’ve even heard at one point that tagging keywords was an entire position on some teams.
If that’s where you’re at, dramatically reduce your incoming file requests. Your team can quickly retrieve source files so they can stay productive. And for any reason your video team has a change in personnel, you don’t have to track down any assets.
The same content can also be stored in multiple places that make sense for different divisions of your team. For example, if a video is used in internal communications and also shared on a social channel, the file can be saved across multiple folders. Using Wipster’s MAM you can add unlimited keywords so tags can be applied based on different organizational needs from your editor to marketing manager.
Once you’ve seen the results of a video campaign and found the drop-off point, a MAM should you easily retrieve the source file. Then comment within Wipster to share the results, collaborate, re-edit and re-upload. From there you can use one-click publishing to add the updated video onto platforms including Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Wistia, Vimeo and Brightcove.
Keeping track of licensed content is also easier when you store the copyright information alongside the asset by saving both in the same folder. That way, if for whatever reason YouTube incorrectly flags one of your videos for a dispute, you can quickly pass along relevant documentation. And since the file’s available in the cloud, anyone with the proper user permissions can access it.
Looking to enjoy all the benefits of a Media Asset Management system and work better together with your team? Try out a 14-day free trial of Wipster now and begin your new improved video workflow.