Posted Monday, November 3, 2008 by
Chuck Gose
The headline is borrowed from an REM song, but it relates to a question I get asked quite often from fellow corporate communicators.
You've heard from me at least a bazillion times that content is what will determine if your digital signage network is a success or a failure. But great content is not enough; you must also keep the content fresh. Stale, old content will turn away an audience just as quick as irrelevant or boring content.
So, how often should you update your digital signs with new and up-to-date content? The easy answer is every day. Several times a day in fact. But given the usual corporate communicator's schedule, this is an impossible dream.
At a bare minimum, you should be pumping out to new messages to your network at least twice a week. You know what happens when you neglect your intranet or your newsletter. You need to treat your digital signs no different than any other employee communications vehicle.
And there are a few tricks you can employ, using RSS and other
automated varieties of content (like weather reports) that keep your network's content fresh without you having to mind the controls.
On a side point, there are many networks out there that get neglected and I don't think it's because of a lack of time or commitment though. I think the dirty little secret out there is that so many digital signage software packages stink. They are awful.(There are probably more colorful words that many would users would offer up but I'm trying to keep it clean for the kiddos.) And many times require you to take your existing content and transfer/transform/convert it into their proprietary format.
It's simply not necessary, especially with MediaTile's
Broadcast Portal and "No IT" signage solution. By keeping your content in its native format, it's much easier for you to push it out to your network.
Back when I managed my own network, I made the commitment of updating my screens at least twice a week. Sometimes, it was just that, while other weeks I'd have more time to spend. But even on the most routine of weeks, I spent an hour a week on content to reach 4,000+ employees.
How much time do you spend on your newsletters and other employee communications activities?