Description: What is it?
Before discussing the merits of Content Management Systems, let’s examine exactly what content is, what it does, and who uses it. Then we can discuss why it’s good to manage it. [Ensure this statement is true by the end] In the simplest terms, content is any type of information that can be transformed into a digital format. Examples of content include documents, graphics, videos, music or sound files, and any type of text. Synonyms for the term content are blog posts, forum posts, help files, videos, graphics and games. Anything you can put on your computer you can put online. That’s what content is.
In the 21st century almost everyone owns digital content in some format. More importantly, today every individual and business has, wants, or needs a web/online presence, and that’s why CMS tools were developed. All the average user needs to know about CMS is it provides a framework or tool for anyone to manage the stuff they need to put online. [To emphasize that it won’t be hard to dive in the CMS pool]
Think of CMS as the skeleton of a website. Alternatively, if went to a website on a web-enabled device and peeled away the graphics and text of any given webpage as if they were sticky notes - all that would remain are blank boxes on your screen. Those empty boxes sitting there, waiting for someone to put something into them is a CMS. CMS is an empty file cabinet if you will.
CMS Users: Who needs it?
Having established that everyone has information to keep track of it, and armed with a basic idea of what a CMS is – who needs CMS? In the very near future, probably everybody will need CMS. The online phenomenon has ebbed a little, but it remains a powerful wave. Smart phones have gotten smarter every year, and now they are ubiquitous/everywhere. Somebody may be reading this webpage right now on their smart phone.
Gen X and Y consider them parts of their body, and like it or not - the plugged in/online generation are our future, and they want to do everything online. You would be amazed to know much [digital?] content your children have.
Furthermore, as the amount of information we accumulate grows every year, the need to organize it and make it easily available online will grow too. Putting your content online allows customers or interested parties to access what you want them to see or read. Moreover, one of the advantages to using CMS is you can place your content in one place which means it is remarkably easy to add, change, or delete anything you want. Best of all, the ability to manipulate your data creates operational and economic efficiencies that were impossible before the advent of CMS. Simply put, if you have information that you need other people to see without your interaction, a CMS provides the means to do so.
Businesses also benefit from CMS in other ways. Most CMS architectures allow the end user to customize the system in ways that provide even more benefits. By using extensions, it is easy to add features like newsletters, pricing information, stock tickers, weather data, and more. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.
Lastly, if you want to help the environment, a CMS is an essential part of everyone’s paperless initiative. CMS allow the uploading and downloading of forms, sales materials, brochures, white papers, and other documents seamlessly with minimum interaction. Considering the number of diminishing forests in the world, and how much paper is consumed around the world - a CMS may be the greenest initiative of all.
CMS Features: What does it do?
It makes sense that by definition, a CMS manages content, but that’s not exactly how they work. Rather, a CMS allows you, the owner, to manage your content conveniently in one place whether you have 2 people posting new articles to a blog, or 50 employees uploading new customer contracts at the same time.
[To emphasis ownership rights, in-house operation, and flexibility]
CMS Benefits: What is achieved?
Once a CMS is available, benefits become apparent relatively quickly. Let’s say you run a small business and you have negotiated special pricing with one of your suppliers to offer your product/service at a 20% discount. If you have entered your customer’s information into the system, you could email them to let them know about the offer. You can put your entire catalogue of products online, which enables you to change the price of any item, or all of them at the same time, with the click of a mouse.
Perhaps the greatest benefit a CMS provides is flexibility over what content you want people to see, and how you want it presented. Content in digital form can be manipulated in a bewildering number of ways, and it can also be combined with other forms of digital media channels like Twitter, SMS, email marketing. These venues are the way future businesses, and the smart ones of today, will connect with customers and grow their business.
In short, it’s hard to define exactly what benefits any specific business will gain from CMS, but CMS opens the door and provides the framework to take advantage of every opportunity web-based technology provides. The businesses without a CMS will remain lost in the wilderness.