Social Media Asset Management for Pros — The Dos and Don’ts

The advent of social media and its rise from a “nice to have” to a “pretty essential thing that everybody takes seriously” has forever changed the dynamics between brands and their consumers. This has increased the demand for high-quality content and the proper tools to streamline the logistics of content creation.

Enter social media asset management, one of those strings of words that sounded like the stuff of B-movie technobabble not 10 years ago. This piece will cover social media marketing asset management in general and how teams should manage their social media assets in particular. So strap on; it’s gonna be one heck of a ride. A Planacoaster, if you will, cause we’re also going to talk about Planable and how it relates to social media asset management. You know how we roll.

Table of contents:

1. Social media asset management definition
2. Social media asset management vs social media content management
3. Social media assets importance
4. Examples of social media assets
5. Social media asset sizes per platform
6. How Planable can help with social media asset management
7. Managing social media assets tips

What exactly is social media asset management?

At its core, social media asset management is a pretty simple concept to grasp — it describes the act of managing a bunch of social media assets. Basically, it’s Dave from design putting some visuals in one place so that Clara from Social can quickly pull them to create a post on the latest vegan smoothies. But if you’ve been around for long enough, you probably already know there’s more to it than that.

The sheer volume of content fed to users these days is unprecedented. However, the effectiveness with which brands reach these people often depends on factors outside their control. Sometimes, the algo gods are just cruel. So social media teams find themselves in the unenviable position of having to push a lot of content. And that content has to be really good to compete with a sea of just as good content. 

Add the fact that each platform plays by its own rules, and you already have to account for a big logistical hurdle even before creating content. Because every platform demands its specific format, social media teams are often burdened with making the same (or worse, different) content that fits each channel. Videos for LinkedIn; visuals for Twitter; stories for Instagram; fine-tuned, but-not-too-fine-tuned-otherwise-they-seem-forced videos for TikTok. 

What about branded hashtags? Twitter doesn’t lend itself to the same hashtags as Instagram. Where do you keep them? Wait, why did YouTube Communities crop my gif? Oh my, did I use an Instagram visual by mistake? 

And that’s pretty much it as far as a social media assets definition is concerned. Creative assets management aims to prevent and, at worst, mediate all of these hurdles. However, this raises another question…

What’s the difference between social media asset management and social media content management?

Let’s be honest here — differentiating social media asset management from social media content management is tricky because they often overlap. But understanding where these two, let’s call them “disciplines” of social media management, diverge can help.

So:

• Social media asset management — the management and logistical categorization of the marketing digital assets that creatives use to create content. 
• Social media content management — covers all facets of running a typical social media marketing operation. This includes planning, execution, measurement, and everything in-between. It can also include staffing, task allocation, software, and budgeting. 

Why are social media assets important? Does asset management make managing social media marketing easier?

A whole lot easier, actually  Asset management can:

• Streamline content production
• Take the logistical burden off of the shoulders of creatives
• Help with maintaining brand consistency across all channels
• Centralize all content production efforts
• Lead to an increase in quality by virtue of freeing up creatives to create and finetune content
• Facilitate easy publishing and distribution
• Help with content localization and personalization efforts
• Make it easy to populate channels with content promptly
• Increase content performance and ROI by virtue of streamlining content creation and distribution

Bottom line, it’s cool having all your stuff in one place because we are creatures of habit who yearn for predictability. OK, this one may not have much to do with social media asset management, but you know I’m right.

via GIPHY

Social media assets rundown — social media assets examples

Now that we went through the general stuff, it’s time to get into the specifics of social media asset management.

Assets in marketing are as varied as they come, so it’s wise to go through the motions and take each one apart. Some of these might be “duh” material, but here’s the thing — social media teams have to juggle a cornucopia of social assets daily, so it’s very, very easy to lose focus. The Instagram assets that you deemed unworthy of centralizing today will get lost in the clutter of your overflowing desktop tomorrow. 

Types of media assets

With that out of the way, here’s a list of social assets examples, so you have it handy:

• Customer database
• Facebook account
• Instagram account
• Twitter account
• LinkedIn account
• YouTube account
• Website URL
• Company blog

These are known as “social media touchpoint” assets. Meaning the kind of assets without which running social media campaigns wouldn’t even be possible.

As for a more specific branding assets list, it usually includes the following:

• Video files (can include Instagram brand assets)
• Audio files
• Animations
• Graphics
• Infographics (especially good as Facebook brand assets)
• Branded images
• Branded visuals such as logos, fonts
• Social media style guide
• Template responses that cover as many situations as possible — say, unsatisfied customers, @mentions from customers/other brands, and so on and so forth.

 

 

Social media asset sizes & other technical elements

As discussed above, each social platform plays by its own rules regarding asset formats. 

An image that might look perfectly fine on Instagram could be resized and compressed to oblivion on Twitter. And you probably already know how bad that looks.

So, for the sake of clarity and having everything put together neatly in one place, here’s a brief rundown of social media asset sizes.

Instagram brand assets image sizes

For a platform as visual and intuitive as Instagram, creators and social media teams have to account for a lot of size variability across formats:

• Profile photo — 320 x 320 pixels
• Feed photos — square (1080 x 1080 pixels), Landscape (1080 x 566 pixels), Portrait (1080 x 566 pixels)
• Stories (1080 x 1920 pixels)
• Carousels — Square (1080 x 1080 pixels), Landscape (1080 x 566 pixels), Portrait (1080 x 1350 pixels)
• Reels — 1080 x 1920 pixels.

Facebook brand assets image sizes

Fortunately, Facebook is more straightforward in terms of formats. The downside is that Facebook offers fewer content formats for social media experts to experiment with. Here are the Facebook asset sizes you need to account for:

• Profile photos — 150 x 150 pixels
• Posts and timeline photos — 1200 x 630 pixels (600 x 315 pixels minimum recommended size)
• Cover photos — 1200 x 628 pixels.

NB: Make sure to follow the recommended pixel sizes for faster load times, and use JPG instead of PNG to avoid compression.

Twitter image sizes

• Header images — 1500 x 500 pixels
• Profile photos — 400 x 400 pixels
• In-stream images — 1600 x 1900 pixels.

Linkedin image sizes

• Profile cover photos — 1584 x 396 pixels
• Profile photos — 400 x 400 pixels
• Blog post link images — 1200 x 627 pixels.

Wait, we’re not done yet. Here are the sizes for Linkedin company pages:

• Square logos — at least 60 x 60 pixels
• Company logos — 300 x 300 pixels
• Page cover — 1128 x 191 pixels.

Now you know everything you need to know about image sizes. That’s it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you nex—

Nah, just messing with you. Here’s how Planable can be a tremendous help in your social media asset management efforts.

Planable — the social media asset management tool you need

NOW we’re getting to the good stuff. Social media asset management can be a drag. You know it, and we know it. Juggling all those files, sifting through bottomless folders for that one visual that you just know it’s the right one. Never mind the literally dozens of perfectly fine visuals living rent-free on your desktop. 

Look, we get it. Managing multiple social media pages across millions (OK, not millions, but still a lot) of platforms is, excuse my French, hard. However, when you end up in a situation where googling a visual is easier than looking through your in-house repository, you know you have a big problem. These kinds of logistical bottlenecks can make or break a social media campaign.

So allow me to propose to you a better, more elegant solution — Planable’s media library. And a bunch of other stuff too, but mainly the media library. Anyways:

Manage social media with no hassle — a complete media asset library

Ever looked at the sketch of a social media post with a blank stare and wondered where on earth did you put that visual specifically designed for it? Did Laura from design DM it to you? Did she dump it in an obscure Google Drive folder? Does that visual even exist? Don’t answer that. No need to.

Enter Planable’s social media assets library, the HQ, the mothership, the North star of social media asset management. Only two of those things are true.

First, a short introduction might be in order. Planable is a social media collaboration tool that helps teams create, plan, and collaborate on their social media content lightning-fast. Our solution has a ton of cool features in that sense, but all in due time.

So what’s this media library you keep seeing mentioned? Well, it’s one of those cool features I hinted at in the previous paragraph. 

It’s the ideal storage solution to keep all your branded visuals in one place, in the same workspace.

Here are the (many) ways in which Planable’s media library can make your life easier:

• A clean, intuitive drag and drop design philosophy. Simply drag and drop your files in the Media Library. You (or your team) can later use these assets in posts.
• Files uploaded in the posts are directly transferred to the media library, so there is no need to do the same thing twice.
• Generous storage space for your files.
• You can see at a glance the file type.
• The ability to check if (and where) a specific social media asset has already been used in another post. To do that, simply click on the “Zoom” icon or double-click on any asset to check.

That’s not all, tho. The beauty of Planable’s media library lies in its seamless integration with other features and functionalities. It’s a tiny (but mighty) cog in a well-oiled social media management machine that works towards a single goal: to make managing content more accessible than ever. 

In that sense, Planable also offers…

A feedback system to finetune your social assets

Some things, like how “pretty” a visual looks, are inherently subjective. What’s not (or less) subjective is whether or not a visual can be easily found or if it’s on-brand. The former we already talked about. As for the latter (ensuring that visuals are on-brand), Planable has just the right feature…

Planable’s feedback system. 

How does this tie in with the media library? Allow me to explain through the power of analogy.

Say you drop a visual in Planable’s media library for later usage. Or it could be a video, a downloadable, whatever, it doesn’t matter. The idea is that the social media post(s) wouldn’t be as impactful without it.

Thing is, you’re not quite sure if that image (or video; or file; or animation) is quite right for your brand. Something about the colors… or font… or copy… Is it adequately spaced? Does a gif of a cat entangled in a string really convey our brand message? These are equally important questions that require an equally precise answer. 

This is where Planable’s feedback system comes into play. It works something like this:

1. Sign up to Planable. It’s simple, fast, and free.
2. Configure your company and workflow.
3. Hit “Compose” and create your beautiful post.
4. Click on “Media Library” and select an asset from there, or simply drag and drop it/upload it from your computer.

This is where the magic happens. If you’re unsure about your choice or simply want to involve the team in the decision-making process, you can simply tag them. Where? In the comments right next to the post. With replies. And emojis. That’s because Planable mimics the feel and flow of social media. 

But wait, there’s more.

A social media calendar to plan and schedule your campaigns around your social media assets

Ever looked at the dozens of awesome posts you sketched out for your equally fantastic campaign and went: “How on earth do I spread these out???” No? Yes? Whatever the case, we feel you. Also, for the sake of argument, I will assume you were struck by that emotional rollercoaster while staring at a spreadsheet, dazed at the prospect of having to turn those cells and rows into something resembling a campaign. I’m sorry, it’s just how it works.

For the sake of the same argument, I will also assume that you have to tackle dozens of social media assets daily, and you’re having trouble managing them. 

In that sense, allow me to present Planable’s social media calendar to you. This calendar is one of four available views:

• Feed view — allows the previewing of posts precisely as they would appear on social media feeds.
• List view — great for bulk scheduling and getting a quick overview of your campaigns.
• Grid view — for arranging those beautiful visuals of yours in eye-catching grids.

Let’s not get sidetracked tho, we were talking about the calendar view:

• Simple drag and drop interface
• Ability to get a helicopter view of your campaigns
• Time slots to plan and schedule content with laser precision
• Fast and seamless content repurposing.

Labels, labels, labels

Planable’s labels are another great way to keep your social media assets organized.

What are labels, you ask? 

Long story short, labels are a nifty tool that allows you to categorize and keep track of your posts/assets. Say you have an Instagram visual that you want to keep an eye on for the future. Simply label it under its appropriate category (“Inspirational; Trending), and the next time you’ll need it, all you’ll have to do is filter labels by category. 

Here’s how this label feature thing looks up close:

Before we move on, let’s quickly go over a few cool things about Planable’s labels:

• Labels are visible from Calendar View.
• Labels are color-coded.
• Labels can be sorted by criteria such as “scheduled” or “last created.”

Finally, let’s talk about the cornerstone of your future social media campaigns — Planable’s multi-layered approval system. 

A multi-layered approval system — no stone left unturned

In an ideal world, a tight approval process should be the pillar of every social media campaign. 

Why? Because like any initiative (whether creative or otherwise), good social media requires a system of checks and balances to ensure that everything runs smoothly. And that rejected/incomplete campaigns stay where they should be — that is, as far away from social feeds as possible.

If that sounds enticing, boy, do I have just the right thing for you. That’ll be Planable’s approval system.

Now, get this. See that “multi-layered” thing in the heading? That’s not just for show, Planable offers 4 approval options:

• None. For teams that don’t need an approval process.
• Optional. It’s for teams who prefer open workflows. For teams that want to invite people to share their thoughts about assets/visuals, but don’t necessarily want to impose approvals. Also cool: when the assigned approver is unavailable, you can simply go ahead and publish the post.
• Required. Absolutely no one can publish content without the approval of the relevant people.
• Multi-level. A multi-level approval workflow wherein the approval of one layer pushes the post into the next level until it’s been approved by everyone.

Quick tips for managing social media assets

• Centralize social media assets. One, neatly organized place for everything is better than spreading your assets across multiple channels. For that, you can use Planable’s Media Library.
• Maintain consistency across your social media assets. These days, social media users are savvy enough to notice any inconsistency, no matter how seemingly insignificant. The format may change across platforms, but your brand’s core must remain consistent across assets. 
• Label assets. Labeling assets accordingly should be an integral part of your workflow. Use Planable’s smart labeling system to categorize and filter your assets.
• Encourage collaboration. Seamless team collaboration is key in efficient social media asset management. What may seem obvious to one team member could slip through the cracks for another. This is where Planable’s intuitive feedback system comes into play.
• Seek external support. Savvy social media marketers know the power of user-generated content. Not only does it stand firmly at the intersection between audience and brand building, but it also takes some of the pressure off the team to create new content consistently.

Social media asset management wrapped up

And that’s a wrap on our piece about social media asset management. Main takeaway: social media asset management should be the pillar of every social media campaign. The more time and effort teams invest in this area, the easier it will be to scale. Most vitally (and obviously), you can use Planable to do just that — manage your social assets efficiently. 

That’s it for today. See you in the next one.

via GIPHY