SharpSpring’s Media Center allows you to create trackable media such as videos, podcasts and sound clips that can be used in emails, automation tasks/workflows, notifications. When leads view these media items, an event will appear in their life of the lead in the contact manager, enabling you to track your leads’ interaction with important content and follow up with them in a meaningful way. This article will show you how to create trackable links, deliver those links to leads, and report on their interaction with your content.
The Media Center provides the ability to:
- Compare tweet and facebook post performance
- A/B test your new content against your old content
- See if leads are actually watching videos linked in your emails
- Know which leads are truly engaging with your content.
The Media Center can be accessed through the top Content menu by selecting Media Center.
On the Media Center page, you will be able to:
- Add new media
- View your created media
- View media shared with you
- Report on media views
Adding New Media
To add new media, simply click the green ‘+ New Media’ button in the top right of the media center.
On the add media tool, add a name and description, and choose whether the media should be shared with your team, available in emails, or available in the contact manager. Finally, decide how you will be providing the content. Content can be added to the Media Center as a link or uploaded as a file.
Note: for Video files, use a video streaming service (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) to host the video content, and then simply provide the link when using the Media Center. Video files tend to be large, and are best managed in a dedicated service.
Managing Media
After media has been added to the media center, each item will be in an itemized list of assets that can be organized into folders. You can also modify sharing and availability options by clicking the gear icon. For each piece of media, create and select trackable links through the trackable links drop down menu.
To create a trackable link, provide a name for the link in the provided field in the Add Link pop-up. Once the link is created, it will be available for distribution in emails, Twitter, Facebook, or just about anything else you can imagine.
(Note: trackable links will not establish new tracking. Since they are a more generic link that is connected to your SharpSpring environment, the interaction with that media will only display in the life of the lead for leads that are already tracked.)
Sharing Media
The trackable link to your media can be accessed in several places:
Media Center
In the Media Center, click the Trackable Links drop-down menu and select ‘Copy <link name>’. This will add the link to your clipboard, so you can quickly paste it wherever it needs to be.
Contact Manager
In the Contact Manager, on the memberships tab, the ‘Send New Media’ button provides a list of media that has not been viewed by the specific lead yet. On the Share Media list, the Trackable Links drop down will display all available links designated as ‘available in content manager’ and allow for the creation of new links.
Email Designer
In the email designer, the media menu item has all of the content marked as ‘available in emails’. Selecting one of the media items inserts the media as an active link in the email. Additionally, the media icon in the toolbar [] enables you to add a link to the email with a preview image.