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Digital Asset Management: Best Techniques To Improve Digital Assets

Managing digital assets can be challenging, not to mention improving them. However, finding ways to improve how you handle them is vital to have a clear inventory of all your digital assets. It would be such if you choose to stick to the old ways you've always used to manage them; it's okay and advisable to learn new technologies to help you grow. Among the solutions you can come up with is to invest in digital asset management; this will save you time, money, and effort. Not to mention always using the latest and most effective ways to manage your digital asset; with it, you will surely improve your assets and grow your business. But before then, what is a digital asset? Let's find out.

What Is a Digital Asset?

A digital asset is an essential and valuable piece of content that is in a digital format. It could be an asset created digitally or offline and later stored on a server. A digital asset can be anything from emails and account information to images and videos. The value of your digital asset can only be defined by yourself; some hold sentimental values like old family photos, others financial value like logos. And that's why you should take advantage of digital asset management.

How To Improve Your Digital Assets 

These assets are intended to help your business function better, faster, and less costly. And for that reason, they must be well managed and improved constantly. Whether you want to have your team work them or get an outside agency to perform them, here's what they should do to improve your digital assets:

Have a clear hierarchy

Digital assets could be found in thousands making it hard to find them if held in one folder or scattered in several areas across the database. You can improve your organization's structure to ensure they enable both. The most important thing to do is to ensure everyone in the organization knows the system. You can categorize the assets in broad criteria, then break them down into a more specific one. For example, you can organize them according to content type, format, and year. Or better still, according to file type, the department, then the campaign. 

Easy-to-understand naming system

File names can be confusing; employees might have difficulty determining which. It would be best to use file names that make it easy for them to tell which files are included in a folder or subfolder. Take, for instance, an infographic every firm has ever made; then it's given a name like an infographic 1 or 2022; it will be hard for some to know which exactly they should pick as infographics for that specific year might have been more than one. Instead, add a title, publication, or campaign date, or find something unique to differentiate it from the other files. This won't only make it easy to find the files but also make it easier to find a misplaced file or restructure the organizational system. 

Consistent formats

Content can be presented in several formats, like videos, texts, PDFs, plus spreadsheets. Different programs are used to access these files depending on how they are saved, and the problem comes in when you find content created in one format but has to be accessed in another. You can improve this by having all your assets saved in standard formats. Choose widely accepted formats; for videos, go for MPEG or .wmv; for photos, use JPEG or GIF files. The arrangements should make it easy for you to manipulate the assets in different platforms, flexible, easy to use, plus universal across all digital assets. 

How To Protect Your Digital Assets

As technology advances, so does cybercrime. Every business need to have excellent cyber security in place. To protect your digital assets, you need to take the following measures toward security: 

Hire monitoring services

Having someone to monitor your data constantly, as Tesames does, will be the best decision you can ever make for your business. This will give you peace of mind and make it possible for you to focus on other matters about the business, knowing that your data is in safe hands. The measure should be a long-term strategy because your data keeps growing as the company does, hence the need for a third party to help you monitor it. 

Add user authentication requirements

Ensure only certain people can reach your digital assets by adding user authentication. How do you go about this? You can use a username or password combination or fingerprints or iris. Some businesses go as far as using two forms of identification so they can get access to their digital assets. 

Use encryption

Encryption is a smart move on your digital assets, but what does it entail? Encryption is the process of transforming readable data into unreadable one. You can achieve this via ciphers, keys, algorithms, etc. Most people use it to ensure only authorized people can access the files. We advise using a robust algorithm such as blowfish, DES, and AES. Additionally, choose an appropriate cipher plus critical size. 

Create strong passwords

Hackers are most likely to hack any password, but you can create one that seems impossible. Here's how you can do it; 

• Use a combination of letters, numbers, plus symbols.
• Make it not less than 12 characters long. It avoids personal names or any word that can be easily guessed.
• Don't use your address or birthdate.
• Change it more often.

A password manager can also be effective in helping you keep track of all your passwords; all you have to do is remember the master password. This will be helpful to those who tend to forget things easily or have issues coming up with strong passwords. 

Use audit trails

An audit trail ensures that you monitor and manage all the activities on your system, making it possible to identify and investigate security issues, unauthorized access, and policy violation. They also help you comply with regulatory requirements and troubleshoot problems with your system and applications.

Create a backup

And what better way to ensure you won't lose your assets than create a backup for it? Imagine something happening to your computer or laptop with all the files stored in there, it would be frustrating, but with them saved on a hard drive, USB, or cloud storage, you would be sorted. You can create your backup by using a service like iCloud or Google drive or, better still, store the backups on your computer. Ensure you have at least three copies of your file kept safe. 

Conclusion

Improving and protecting a digital asset is a basic need for every business; hiring a management service is the best decision ever. Take advantage of all the above measures to ensure your digital assets are in safe hands and in excellent condition. Contact us to help you with professional digital asset services.