Ultimate Guide To WordPress Digital Asset Management

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is the process of cataloging, storing, and sharing digital media files like videos, images, audio files, PDF documents, etc. The key to an effective DAM system is having a centralized database where all of these files can be safely kept and organized for quick and easy retrieval.

WordPress Digital Asset Management (WDAM) is pretty much the same. The goal is to make it easier for WordPress users to store, catalog, and use digital assets. However, WordPress is severely lacking in many of these areas by default. So, to organize your digital assets, you’ll need to add features in the form of plugins and/or integrations to turn WordPress into a DAM system.

So, let’s understand what WDAM is, how it can help you with data management, and go over some great WordPress plugins that can help you easily achieve your goals.

Why is WordPress Digital Asset Management required?

Here are the three main benefits of Digital Asset Management (DAM) in WordPress that will give you and your coworkers more benefits than just pure organization:

1. It centralizes storage

Since the global pandemic, many more people are working from home, so most companies need to have centralized storage where all of one’s work-related information is saved. Digital asset management makes it easy for employees to store files in one place, whether they work in the office or from home.

2. It saves time and money

You know it by now—time is money, and controlling your spending (both in currency and on your nerves) is a crucial action any business takes in order to survive.

Most graphic designers or social media managers are wasting their time looking for a specific photo they know exists in an unorganized space. They may just open an AI content generator and get the job done. By having DAM, it will help you categorize and store assets in groups, and you get to choose how to name them and where to locate them.

3. It declutters your space

Or should we say it “lights up” your website? Storage on your laptop is easily eaten up by files of long-forgotten projects that you may return to someday, making your computer slower. Especially for artists who create animated videos for businesses (we know how much you cherish your computer memory!) So why not declutter that space and transfer those files to a DAM? It’s as easy as it sounds! 

We think these three reasons together give you a clearer understanding of the benefits of digital asset management. Let’s see how to successfully implement it in WordPress.

WordPress Digital Asset Management is easy to master (with some helping hands)

By design, WordPress media libraries make it simple to upload and organize media files. Still, it falls flat on its face when the time comes to organize and distribute those images and documents. If a file doesn’t have a taxonomy or isn’t in the right category—both of which are needed to organize and share documents—it may be lost forever.

In this situation, the WDAM solution comes into play and adds to what a standard WordPress install can do. It enhances the possibility of media library organization for quick and simple sharing. Because of this, all types of content can benefit from a DAM that uses high-quality, well-tested WordPress plugins to improve its ability to manage content.

Although we start with a blank slate when initially building a WordPress website, there are some rudimentary possibilities the platform gives you. But apart from the basics, there is not much more to expect if any other plugins aren’t installed.

5 must-have plugins for an efficient Digital Asset Management in WordPress

Enhanced Media Library

The Enhanced Media Library plug-in is a risk-free addition that lets you do more than one thing at the same time. 

This is a great tool for uploading otherwise restricted files. Installing it will save you a lot of time, money, and effort because it is a straightforward and simple way to help WordPress media flow.

Enhanced Media Library Plugin Features:

  • Create folders, projects, authors, and topics with their own unique taxonomies. You have access to an unlimited number of third-party taxonomies to meet your needs.
  • Improve filter management with user-editable settings. Additionally, the media library allows you to switch on filters and set their parameters. Extensive data, taxonomy filters, and other options are at your disposal.
  • Simplify the process of arranging large amounts of data. WordPress’s media library is already very user-friendly, but the latest updates make it even more so. It’s as simple as turning on captions to make your media library more organized and user-friendly. Changing the sorting options allows you to manually rearrange media files.

Brandfolder 

The Brandfolder plugin connects your Brandfolder account to WordPress. You can keep your digital assets in one location, where they can also be managed, accessed, searched, and shared, making it easier to manage digital assets on your site.

After activating the plugin, you can add these media files to your articles without leaving WordPress. Brandfolder can be managed, and entire folders can be embedded in WordPress to make it easy for third parties to access your assets.

Brandfolder Plugin Features:

  • Store all of your digital assets in a cloud-based, user-friendly space.
  • Access comprehensive data on the whereabouts, use, and best-performing digital assets with Brand Intelligence—a blend of AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) that provides insight into your digital assets. 
  • Generate an embed link with the [Brandfolder id = “mapmyfitness” collection = “mapmyrun” query = “” text = “View our Brandfolder” classes = “brandfolder”] shortcode in posts, pages, and widgets.
  • Easily make changes to your Brandfolders right from the WordPress dashboard.
  • Add media files stored in your cloud service to your WordPress site for usage in articles and other materials with “Brandfolder browser – a Media Library Integration.” 

But keep in mind that to use this plugin, you will need a Brandfolder account. The plugin works with Brandfolder, which is a service that requires you to sign up for a subscription plan. 

Phraseanet Plugin

With digital asset management open source plugin Phraseanet, you can store and manage all of your files in one place. When compared to WordPress’s built-in media library, this one is a huge improvement. This makes it a great choice for digital agencies, start-ups, and established businesses because they don’t need to worry anymore about the safety of their digital possessions in a cost-effective way.

You only need to get the program, host it, and connect it to WordPress Install.

You may use this plugin to keep tabs on what’s happening in Phraseanet, see which files have been downloaded, see which people are the most active, and so much more. In addition, you can export every report as a CSV file!

File Manager Plugin 

The File Manager plugin is very popular because it gives WordPress users what they want: a way to organize media files. It makes a new entry in the sidebar called “File Manager,” where you may save and organize your digital files.

The use of the File Transfer Protocol is redundant due to File Manager. You don’t have to use File FTP to modify or relocate any of your hosted files. Simply dragging a file onto the File Manager’s window will begin the upload process.

The add-on also features a search bar that allows you to look for certain files using their names or extensions. If you don’t want to look for a specific file by name, you can instead sort it.

Using the plugin’s improved version, you can easily share files with other people by turning on a front-end file folder. Folder access can be controlled according to user roles, which is useful for data protection.

Also, if you want to keep user data separate, you can give each WordPress user their own locked folder.

Folders 

Here are just a few of the many benefits of this plugin:

  • Media assets like images, videos, web pages, and blog posts may all be neatly filed away in their own directories. On the other hand, you can divide your important documents into several different folders.
  • There are specialized features for web designers that help them maintain the integrity of their client’s websites as they are being built. To ensure that your clients’ files are immediately recognizable, you can either mark a folder or rename the files themselves. And your virtual content writers may control their entire data archive with ease. The information can be readily filtered by category, topic, and date.
  • Because it sorts everything into folders, you won’t waste time looking for important files. As an added bonus, this plugin also includes a simple replacement-files-after-a-few-months option if you decide to update your website.

Takeaway

While WordPress itself isn’t a good fit for digital asset management, powerful plugins exist that can make it incredibly useful when combined with other DAM solutions.

At the very least, you can give the WordPress media library the cataloging and sharing tools it so desperately needs. And if you want to manage documents or images with more features, you can use the Brandfolder or Phraseanet plugins for WordPress.

Once you tidy up your website’s environment and create an exact taxonomy of all files uploaded to it, you can even make a greater SEO strategy for your website, as all images, videos, and documents will be easier to optimize. 

And just like that, your WordPress website will finally spark joy!

Ani Hoang
Ani Hoang

Ani has been managing WordPress websites and optimizing different affiliate sites. She is also passionate about digital marketing and branding. She joined WPHub to plan and execute the backend operations to support your experience on our site.

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