As a professional Digital Content/Asset Manager for over seven years, I’ve gained some insights into content management. Yet, in a sense, we’re all content managers these days. Whether you’re capturing moments on your phone or curating a collection for work, managing digital assets has become an essential skill. With the exponential growth of digital collections, it’s critical to understand the basics of content management—a field still in its relative infancy, with limited resources and research.

The resources that do exist are often marketing-focused, reflecting the industry’s demand for content in advertising campaigns. However, in my experience, effective content management requires a strong foundation in technical IT and storage practices, especially in organizational contexts. Larger companies have the budget to employ specialists, but many smaller institutions rely on sole individuals to handle a wide variety of tasks.

The Three Layers of Content Creation

Creating and managing digital content involves a multi-step process that can be broken down into three fundamental layers:

1. The Creation Layer

This is where content is born—whether it’s video, audio, images, text, or any other format. But creating content is only the beginning; you need a reliable system for long-term storage.

2. The Hardware Layer

This layer involves the physical and digital infrastructure that houses your content. Stable storage and regular backups are essential to ensure your content is safe and accessible over time.

3. The File Layer

Metadata is the key to managing and finding your content effectively. Without a robust metadata strategy, even the best storage solutions fall short when it comes to retrieval.

These layers form the foundation for what I think of as the Archive > Retrieval > Delivery Cycle, which is the workflow most of us unconsciously follow whenever we search for content, retrieve it, and deliver it—whether it’s a social media post, a licensing request, or a print for publication.

Why the Workflow Matters

For the workflow to function smoothly, all three layers must work together seamlessly:

• Without content, there’s no archive.

• Without stable hardware and backups, your archive is unreliable and prone to loss.

• Without metadata, retrieval becomes a time-consuming and frustrating task, hindering delivery.

Take the example of a professional photographer:

They may need to license an image to a magazine, prepare a fine art print, and organize a collection for a book—all in the same week. If their storage system fails, or their metadata is incomplete, the workflow grinds to a halt. These challenges are universal, whether you’re managing a personal art archive, a research repository, a museum collection, and even legal or health documents.

Diving Deeper Into Content Management

While this overview introduces the basics, there are additional considerations for optimizing content management:

• Version Control: Keep track of edits and iterations.

• Compliance: Understand legal requirements like GDPR or HIPAA.

• Workflow Integrations: Evaluate tools and systems that streamline your process.

• User Training: Ensure your team is equipped to use your systems effectively.

• Access Control: Differentiate between privileged and general users.

• Scalability: Plan for growth.

• Costs: Account for maintenance, upgrades, and operational expenses.

Each of these elements requires careful planning, but they’re critical for building a sustainable and efficient system.

My Journey in Content Management

My fascination with content management began with photography. I’ve been a photographer since I received my first camera at age 12—a gift from my grandfather. I went on to earn a BFA in Photography and spent seven years managing the physical and digital archives of a prolific photographer.

This experience taught me that photography is about much more than taking pictures. Digital archiving and preservation, especially for vast, high-profile collections, require a level of technical expertise that surpasses consumer-grade solutions. A desire to continue learning even once you feel confident in your expertise is critical to improving your skills. Even gathering your thoughts in an attempt to share what you’ve learned (like I’m doing here) is vital. Just in case one bit of it helps someone, somewhere.

Storage Administration and Backups

As creators, we generate immense amounts of content—photos, videos, podcasts, and more. Storing it all responsibly is critical. Leaving files on a laptop is a single point of failure. Laptops are prone to hardware issues, from accidental drops to SSD degradation. To mitigate these risks, consider:

• Redundant Local Backups: Always have multiple copies of your files.

• Offsite Cloud Storage: Protect against data loss from physical disasters.

• Regular Restore Testing: Backups mean little if you can’t restore them.

For large-scale transfers or backups, command-line tools like rsync are invaluable. Unlike dragging and dropping files in a graphical interface, tools like rsync are efficient and resilient, especially for large directories:

rsync -avP /Volumes/drive1/dir1/ /Volumes/drive2/dir1/ 

This command uses the archive flag which preserves permissions, and displays transfer progress. When used with a cron job, it automates scheduled backups—but be sure to avoid running it during active file use to prevent corruption.

I haven’t even begun to talk about file systems like ZFS and RAID arrays. The type of storage media needed for large-scale digital archives. This is a subject I will dive into in a separate post.

Digital Content Management

Once your backups and storage systems are in place, organization is the next step. Creating a logical folder structure and choosing the right Digital Asset Management (DAM) or Content Management System (CMS) are critical.

For instance, my photography archive uses a date-based folder structure:

ALL_UPLOADS > 2023 > 2023-04-02(description)

Selected RAW files are edited and saved as JPEGs in categorized folders tailored to delivery needs. This approach ensures that the archive remains both organized and scalable. This method will change depending on each users need.

Archive > Retrieval > Delivery

To summarize, successful content management hinges on this cycle:

1. Archive: Long-term storage of original files and their accessibility.

2. Retrieval: Leveraging metadata to locate files efficiently.

3. Delivery: Sharing or publishing content in its final form.

Whether you’re delivering an image for an ad campaign or a video for a social media post, the goal remains the same: smooth, efficient delivery.

Conclusion

Content management isn’t just about creating, storing, or sharing—it’s about building systems that support these actions reliably and efficiently. You’ll see I didn’t mention specific software . We all know the big names, and have our favorites. As long as it works for you, keep it.

While this is just a general overview, there’s much more to explore, like backups and metadata strategies. Stay tuned for future posts where I’ll dive deeper into these topics.

Thank you for reading!