Protecting Multimedia: The Rising Importance of Metadata

Multimedia is content: So it makes sense you would protect it like you would any article or publication. But when you want people to share your images or video, it’s hard to know how to protect your rights as creator.

This brings up the issue of permanent metadata.

Metadata is data about data, or more comprehensively, data within an image or video that tells you about it: who the author is, where is originated, etc. You can find this data by looking at a video or image’s properties and looking into its advanced settings. It’s really not as complicated as it sounds. This information is also used by search engines to know exactly what an image or video is about (because search engines don’t have eyes or ears). SEOs call these alt tags and use them frequently to improve search engine’s understanding of a website, and in turn, search rankings.

The issue is this metadata isn’t permanent. It can be altered by anyone at anytime, making protection nonexistent if anyone had the inclination to eliminate your digital affiliation with your work. It is for this reason hardly anyone even uses them.

What is needed is software to make this metadata permanent: a digital thumbprint that would be irremovable from the multimedia. This thumbprint could then be read by search engines and knowing the originator’s site (which would be embedded in the metadata), could boost their rankings, making sharing seamless and responsible. This eliminates the idea of “orphaned” multimedia and protects creator copyright.

Here’s an example. Say you’re a photographer and you post a really cool image of a Starbucks coffee cup. You then share than image and it goes viral, until eventually Starbucks sponsors it in a paid social-ad campaign. Search engines value shares and recognize them as proof that content is valuable. Your website then, which you linked into the Starbuck image metadata, would then get boosted to the top of the search result for whatever keywords were discerned as significant in the meta description.

Cool, huh? There's even more.

While also protecting the creator's work from being used in other campaigns as it no longer being categorized as "orphaned" or unclaimed, permanent metadata could result in further business for the creator as their contact information would be easy to find if a business were so inclined as to contact you to purchase it.

The hurdle is that many businesses like the idea of free "orphaned" images that they can use for marketing purposes. And these business have clout. The hope is that in the future, businesses see that this protection not only protects the Instagrammers but extends to big business as well. That if this metadata became permanent, and a significant piece of that digital Internet structure, they would no longer need their high-power legal teams to protect their assets; they would protect themselves. An innovative idea we should all be able to get behind.

What You Need to Know: Google Authorship versus Author Rank

There are no shortage of blogs to explain the increasingly importance of Google Authorship and Author Rank — but regardless, here are the basics you need to know.

Google Authorship is your personal stamp for your content, performed by linking your articles to your Google+ profile. Authorship helps protects your work from plagiarism and is entered into your Author Rank.

Author (or Agent) Rank is the compilation of that content to determine your search rank and relevancy. It is used to weed out spammers from search results and improve user search experience.

It is important to note that even if Google+ is not your primary social network, Google Authorship and Rank are of paramount importance to higher web traffic and here’s why.

1. Higher Search Rank

Simply put, Google favors those it can trust and establishing a profile on Google+ with basic matching information is an easy step to ensure your content is given its due place in search results.

2. Stand Out in Search Results

Not only are you higher ranked, but your articles will also be tagged with a thumbnail of your profile picture next to your content along with an icon indicating Google knows you’re a real person.

3. More Page Views

According to copyblogger, another authorship benefit is if a user spends at least two minutes on your page, Google’s algorithm will recognize your site as having value to that user and when they back out, they will be treated to a drop-down of other pages from your domain.

In short, if you've got quality content and you're sharing it via social, you should be claiming it via a Google+ account — your content deserves it.

Content Marketing: The Evangelism of Brand Journalism

Every year businesses spend millions of dollars trying to get on the front page of high profile publications, websites and news stories. They throw themselves at media outlets with time consuming projects, expensive galas and off-brand publicity stunts--all for what? To get ignored, because journalists have a nose for when they are being sold and an even keener sense for what the public is interested in.

But how do you not get ignored? The answer is simple: hire them.

By hiring a journalist you hire an insider to write for your brand. A savant-of-the-printed-word that not only has consumer instincts and writing talent but better methods to keep from being ignored.

One example of a company excelling in branded journalism, highlighted in David Meerman Scott's WebInkNow, is Raytheon. Raytheon is an aerospace systems company specializing in defense, security and civil markets throughout the world. In 2011, Raytheon brought on ex-TV producer Corinne Kovalsky as Director of Digital and Social Media. Kovalsky then picked up Stephanie Schierholz, social media manager from NASA, and Chris Hawley from the Associated Press. Together they have put together a editorial operation to rival a news publication.

"I'm helping to build a news operation," said Chris in WebInkNow. "We are working at Raytheon just like an AP beat to find interesting stories and tell the world about them in a way that engages. We have bureau chiefs in all of our four divisions. They have certain products that they want to talk about so we try to find new and interesting ways of exploring those stories. And we refine the story ideas, assign writers and we're doing a lot of training on editing and getting those stories out."

As far as success, Raytheon has seen a 451% web traffic increase over the year before and is frequently featured in articles from publications like Gizmodo and other tech outlets.

Know of other companies hiring brand journalists to write or run their content strategy? I'd love to hear about them below.

The Three S's of Content Marketing