do you distinguish between metadata and tags in DAM? //

Digital Asset Management (DAM) includes two elements that are often misunderstood: tags and metadata.

Metadata is what links objects. Tags are elements that users define to mark objects so that they can be found. Although they may appear to be the same, some people mistakenly believe they are.

It is important to understand the differences between each element in order to set up and maintain your DAM.

Metadata defines aboutness

Metadata is often defined as “data about data.” However, I believe the most important part of this definition is the word “about”. Metadata is a way to determine the “aboutness,” or the information object of things in systems.

An example: A.mp4 file (video) uploaded to your DAM might be “about” the latest service offered by your company. The file could also contain other data about the “aboutness”.

• What software was the video created in?
• Date and time of file completion.
• The campaign in which the video was used.

These metadata “data points” can be used to help a user search for a video file later.

DAM administrators must keep track of these metadata data elements to ensure that future users can search quickly, easily, and productively.

Get deeper: 3 steps that will supercharge your DAM system

Standards for metadata

Although there could be hundreds of elements that your company keeps track of, it is important to keep the final list of metadata elements short and concise. Your DAM platform should automatically extract most of these elements.

Camera hardware generates elements such as the file format, camera make, model, height, width, file size, camera make, and model, and any other technical data related to digital and analog files. These are extracted when photos are uploaded.

It is highly desired to have metadata that can be generated automatically, without the need for manual data entry. This results in less intervention from DAM administrators and greater technical accuracy.

How to reduce metadata elements

Consider the project, sales, and other management tools that users use when deciding which metadata elements you should add to your metadata schema.

The most important metadata elements for end users will be listed in a report that lists the metadata fields found in the forms system administrators have created. These are the metadata elements that users will search for and remember, rather than individual file names.

Tags are for users

Individual users have their own ways of finding things, which is often more important than the data that you need for your user groups.

When searching for albums in my music program, I forget the album names, but can remember the album covers. To make it easier to find my albums again, I label them with the colors and objects that are on their covers. These tags are not useful for other music lovers.

Let’s say that I’m a copywriter and need to update copy for last year’s holiday campaigns. I will have to search for last year’s Black Friday copy. Maybe I’ve had to search for Memorial Day and Back to School copy in the past.

To find such assets again next year, I may want to tag them with the keyword “holiday”. Another keyword might be “festive” and “special sales.”

In either case, my DAM librarian would like to offer a tagging option for users to apply tags to files in order to find assets they use frequently.

This is possible without disturbing the DAM’s critical metadata. They allow for some control over the DAM’s use.

The ease of learning a new system can be reduced by using tags. Files that are “lost” in large enterprise-level systems can be easily “found again” using tags.

Get deeper: Building your DAM foundation

Do tags metadata exist?

This is where metadata and tags can become a problem. DAM administrators can use tags to enable advanced search filtering for their most common uses.

Tags allow DAM admins to automatically generate tags on uploaded assets in frequently searched folders, so they can be immediately searchable upon “import”, a fancy librarian’s term for “import”.

The key difference between metadata and tags is that metadata elements should be standard.

Standard elements can be found in internationally accepted, widely used, and published schemas like PREMIS, IPTC and XMP (maintained and maintained by Adobe).

Standard elements enable asset metadata to be easily transferred and automatically extracted from any other database, information management software, or DAM should business requirements change.

The DAM platform may allow you to store enterprise-specific tags as metadata. This is how the Adobe Experience Manager Assets platform (AEM Assets), for example, can store tags, regardless of whether they are deployed on-premises or in the cloud. It can assign enterprise-specific tags for assets that are to be ingested in particular folders.

Administrators should not be the only ones who can edit or create this type of metadata as they have an impact on the whole system.

Dig deeper: A 12-step guide for implementing a digital asset management system

Metadata and tagging can make your DAM system more efficient.

Properly deployed, metadata, tags, and smart tags can create a highly productive digital assets management system that can quickly return investment and connect more people to more intellectual property.

To speed up the searchability and use of your intellectual property, they only need a little bit of care and pruning.

MarTech first published the post tags vs. metadata: What’s The Difference?.