We are all media companies now.

Organizations in every sector are now creating more content in more forms than ever before.

For example, a 2023 study of video output reported that financial services firms lead the way (producing an average of 934 videos per company that year), followed by high tech (917 videos) and education (634 videos). However, other industries are catching up with real estate, healthcare, and manufacturing businesses amping up their output.

But without proper management, all that content quickly becomes unwieldy, confusing, and a lot of it can be wasted. The solution? Media archive management.

In this article, you’ll learn about:

• What led to the boom in media output
• The challenges of managing all that content
• What media archive management is
• Key features of media archive management
• Benefits of media archive management
• Where to begin
  
  Do you need better media management? Take our quiz to find out.

Every company is a media company

It’s not long ago - 20 years at most - that most companies’ entire media library could fit comfortably in a shared drive on a local server.

There might have been a few photos of top executives for press releases. If the company sold physical things, they’d have a library of product images for catalogs. There might be one or two corporate overview videos. Perhaps some logos, print ads, brochures, and other paraphernalia.

But fast forward to 2024, and things have changed beyond recognition. Almost all organizations now produce an enormous range of rich media:

• Website videos and imagery
• Regularly updated social media videos and imagery
• Podcasts and audio
• Content from external collaborators (e.g., influencer content)
• Product and service explainer content
• And much, much more

This boom in media assets is driven by several factors.

Partly, it’s due to commercial factors. In a 2024 survey, 88% of marketers said video is an integral part of their strategy. That makes sense for many reasons. For instance, HubSpot reports that landing pages with embedded video convert more than those without.

Consumers now expect it, too. Whether they’re learning about products and services, deciding whether to attend a college, finding out about a faith group, or anything else, people have come to expect information in rich formats.

Technology has had a massive impact as well. It’s now far more accessible and cheaper to produce very high-quality content. It’s also easier to distribute it quickly to multiple channels. And, of course, the growth of social media has opened up a new market for content, collaborations with influencers, and advertising opportunities.

The content management challenge

This rapid boom in content means that all kinds of organizations are now grappling with a challenge that used to only really be an issue for traditional media businesses: how to store, find, and use media effectively.

There are several challenges here:

• Content discovery: With hundreds of videos, thousands of images, and hours of audio, businesses struggle to find individual files when they want to use them again. Even with well-organized file naming conventions and centralized storage, it’s often hard to discover content. But it’s even more challenging when held on multiple devices, USB drives, cloud storage, desktops, and beyond.  
• Collaboration: Most organizations create media assets collaboratively (and often with the support of agencies and freelancers). Collaborating on media assets when they’re all stored on-premises (or even shipping hard drives) is hardly ideal in an era of remote work.
• Waste: Creating any kind of media asset costs money - particularly high-spec videos. Yet companies often use them once or for short campaigns, then fail to use them again. This is usually hugely wasteful.
• Costs: Data storage costs money. While it might make sense to keep files you’re actively working on in a more expensive but accessible ‘hot’ storage, holding all content there would be unnecessarily costly. However, ‘cold’ storage, while cheap, is also often more complicated to access.
• Security and compliance: Media assets are a form of IP, and some content may also be regulated (e.g., video guides for a healthcare device). Keeping it safe, secure, and protected is therefore vital. Discover how to secure your media supply chain.
  
  

The solution: media archive management

Media archive management is a technology that helps any organization manage its media assets. If you’re struggling with large folders and assets stored in multiple locations or find it challenging to locate or collaborate on files, this tech can be a real game changer.

It’s essential to understand what media archive management is not. This tech is not just another form of file storage - a C-drive, an external drive, or even a cloud-based storage solution like Dropbox. Instead, it’s a technology that helps you manage your media wherever it’s located.

Key features of a media archive management solution include:

• Ability to locate content

A media archive management solution helps you to locate content wherever it is held. With iconik, the software maps and tracks the location of all your media, whether in the cloud, on a local drive, or even on someone’s desktop.

• File organization

A media archive management tool will organize files in highly intuitive ways. Rather than forcing users to drill through dozens of folders to find specific videos, it uses AI to help them search for content using natural language.

How? With iconik, we scan every video, photo, and audio recording to create transcripts or identify images and use this to auto-generate very rich metadata for every single file. That means you can quickly discover the exact content you’re looking for - even if you don’t remember the file name or date.

• Collaboration

Media archive management should make it easy to collaborate on projects so everyone can view, edit, or discuss files - whether they’re in-house, working remotely, or coming from an external agency.

With iconik, users can discover files wherever they’re stored, then work on them with coworkers anywhere. Similarly, changes (with versions recorded) can be made from any device or location.

• Security and access

A proper media archive management solution should be highly secure to prevent loss or theft of IP. With iconik, we’ve built robust security measures (encryption, intrusion detection, logging, password hashing, and more) to ensure you stay in complete control.

Related: 5 key features of media asset management

Why use media archive management?

There are several reasons to choose a media archive management solution:

• Efficiency: It’s quicker, easier, and more convenient to find content - especially with AI-powered tagging and metadata

• Media asset ROI: Easily find, repurpose, and reuse content, maximizing potential return on investment.

• Collaboration: Work with the best producers, photographers, editors, and influencers efficiently, regardless of location.

• More secure: Make it more challenging for bad actors to steal your content with strong access controls.

• Saves money: Store media assets in the least expensive locations, confident you can still find them when needed.

• Always backed up: With media archive management solutions like iconik, you know all your content is continually backed up in case of unforeseen data loss.

• Productivity: Content teams can waste hours every day searching for files. Using tools like iconik means they spend more time on valuable tasks.

How healthcare firm Arthrex uses media archive management

Like many businesses, surgical technology company Arthrex has recently ramped up media production. In 2022 alone, they created ~1,600 videos and had some 1.4 million assets in their media library.

However, the company struggled to find individual assets in its hot and cold storage libraries, and the content team spent hours each day searching for files.

But, since deploying iconik’s media archive management solution, the company can discover content quickly while remaining secure and meeting healthcare regulatory requirements. Read the full story here.

Be future-ready with media archive management

As companies produce more media assets, the need to deal with them effectively gets more pressing by the day.

And this is where media archive management solutions like iconik come in. By letting you find, store, collaborate on, and secure your content, a media archive management tool means you’ll be best prepared for a future where rich media is ever more critical.

Want to see how you can manage your media like a media company? Contact us today for a demo.

‍