Content management remains essential to businesses as the number of digital assets needed to compete in the online marketplace explodes. Robust DAM systems improve efficiency and efficacy within marketing teams; they are essential if you want to improve your business’ competitive edge.Sitecore is a global leader in digital asset management (DAM). Their popular product, Content Hub, is a unique Omni-channel Content platform providing critical asset, content and resource management tools for marketers and content creators.
Sitecore recently added new and powerful DAM features in the latest update, Content Hub Version 3.4. These new features increase its efficiency as a DAM system over its previous release. 3.4 streamlines the Content Hub product for every part of a business, from super-users customising system and user functions to marketers using AI to find the assets they need, quickly.
Content Hub 3.4 also boasts new integration features for the Adobe Creative Tools, Marketing Resource Management and Content Marketing Platform, and most notably, a tighter integration with CHILI Publish. In previous versions, customers were referred to CHILI for their advanced Web to Print needs, but now, CHILI Publish fully integrates with all plans of Content Hub. So, customers only need to consult with Sitecore Partner Network for their Web to Print needs.
What’s new in Sitecore Content Hub 3.4?
The new features released in 3.4 will streamline the workflow of marketers and designers as they interact with Content Hub and their digital asset library. The release improves search speed with AI, new video analysis tools and multiple optimisations to the organisational system.
AI Innovation
Content Hub 3.4 incorporates leading-edge AI innovation to ensure that it is powerful and easy to use. The main function added in 3.4 is Image Similarity, which allows the AI to scan an opened image and find others like it.
As content databases become too large for a human to search, it is critical to have services, like the Content Hub 3.4 AI, that can locate images that may have been lost otherwise. Images found by the AI can be used or repurposed for current marketing solutions. This avoids wasting time and money creating assets already in the database or creating assets that you could adapt from other assets.
Sitecore has additional plans for AI services in the future. One planned feature is Image Recognition, in which AI will suggest images it believes will align with certain audiences or marketing goals. Image Recognition would be a future release, but it is a clear roadmap for AI within Content Hub beyond version 3.4.
Video Analysis
Sitecore Content Hub 3.4 integrates its video asset management capabilities with Microsoft’s Azure Cognitive Services. With Azure, Sitecore can analyse video and assign metadata to it. Your marketing team no longer wastes time adding metadata or organising video. This increases efficiency because they can focus on promoting products, rather than finding the assets needed to promote them.
Additionally, Azure Cognitive Services allow Sitecore to provide transcripts for videos in the asset library. Azure utilises a system similar to AI Image Similarity to suggest content that is similar to a video. The transcription and similarity tools increase efficiency while navigating and organising content within a business’ database.
For video, Sitecore Content Hub 3.4 allows for cropping and annotating videos directly within Content Hub. Previously, videos had to be cropped with external tools and then reuploaded to Content Hub. 3.4 adds the functionality to save subtitles as files attached to videos, greatly improving file organisation.
Organisation and Ease of Use
DAM systems can be clunky, especially for enterprises with a large asset library. Sitecore Content Hub 3.4 improves user experience to eliminate wasted time on organisation and navigation.
Two of the largest additions to Content Hub in 3.4 is the smart navigation system and saved searches. With smart navigation, users can locate assets based on details and view information relevant to the details they searched. Saved searches integrate a business’ important searches on page load. Both of these tools are fantastic at optimising data library searches. Additionally, Content Hub now allows for tagging ‘on the fly’, so users can add metadata, like tags, to assets without needing to load assets.
Another massive time-saver from Content Hub 3.4 is the Mass Edit Templates. This feature allows designers to create a template and then apply it to edit a multitude of assets simultaneously. This saves a significant amount of time when making logo modifications and colour palette adjustments to brand assets.
Web To Print
Previously, Sitecore Content Hub referred clients to their Web to Print partner CHILI Publish, meaning that businesses needed to have separate contracts with both Sitecore and CHILI to optimise their Web to Print options. Content Hub 3.4 now fully integrates Sitecore and CHILI Publish in the same package. The ‘advanced’ features, previously locked behind the Enterprise level plan, are now available on Pro and Corporate, allowing for much more flexibility in plans that businesses can choose.
The Web to Print templates and assets that CHILI Publisher offers are powerful tools for designers, and fully integrating them with an asset library is essential for optimised Web to Print workflow.
Why It’s All Important
As companies experience the content explosion, a Digital Asset Management system is essential to ensuring a smooth workflow for designers and other marketers. Without proper DAM, marketers waste time and money finding assets or recreating those that were lost instead of stored in an asset library.
Creative Folks are uniquely positioned with 20+ years of creative experience to guide organisations through DAM integration with business systems and implement omni-channel content platforms like Sitecore’s Content Hub 3.4. Our consultative services ensure that your digital assets are organised and optimised within the platform so that content is easy to find and use when you need it most.
Creative Folks is a Sitecore Gold Partner and the first authorised Content Hub Specialist in Australia. Unlock the potential of Sitecore Composable DXP, Content hub API and leverage Content Hub 3.4 features to save time and money.
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