The Key Differences Between Cloud Storage and Digital Distribution

When it comes to digital content distribution, you may wonder why you need a separate software system for your training content. After all, almost everyone knows how to create a high-quality PDF; why can’t you just share that to your attendees and call it a day?

Most organizations have come up with a way to share files among employees, including cloud software such as Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive. This makes it easy to collaborate and distribute documents among team members.

But your learners aren’t part of your team, and so the aspects that make cloud sharing so great for business communication make it awful for sharing to your learners.

Top-down digital management gives you:

1. Secure Distribution

While cloud storage focuses on team collaboration, a digital distribution platform enables secure distribution of your final content to your audience. Your learners will have enhanced capabilities to annotate, highlight, and interact with the content, but they won’t be able to make any changes, keeping your critical IP secure.

2. Re-Distribution Prevention

One major problem with sending Joe Schmoe a link to a shared folder is that Joe can turn around and forward that link to anyone, and you’ll never know. With a digital distribution platform, you have complete control over who can access your content, when, and for how long. For example, with some digital distribution platforms, learners access the content only with keycodes that you send them. You can make each keycode expire, or, if Joe Schmoe ends up not paying for the course, you can revoke his access with just the press of a button.

3. Advanced Analytics

When using a cloud sharing platform like Google Drive, the most analytics you’ll get is a full run-down of the edits made to the document and when. With a proper digital distribution platform, you will have access to a whole dashboard of reports, including who opened your content, how long they spent with it, the passages they annotated, and more.

In an understaffed, overtaxed learning department, it can be tempting to use the technology at hand, such as cloud sharing, to create an ad-hoc digital content strategy. Yet there is so much more you can do with an actual digital distribution platform to enhance both your administrative control and your learners’ experience.  It is well-worth the research to find the right fit for you.

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