Considering SmugMug for small org marcomm sharing needs

jonathan7007jonathan7007 Registered Users Posts: 1 Beginner grinner
All,
I hope to get feedback from organizations that use SmugMug as a small-org photo asset sharing site: "Digital Asset Management" for marketing/member communication needs for our church.

People in the church that need to use approved photos for news to other congregants or for outward-facing news would have some access and a small (one? three?) group has full access. It's likely that one "Editor" (church administrator) would do all the gallery organization and check tagging. For instance, only this one person could delete an image.

SmugMug's development was not dedicated to this goal, but there are few alternatives for the scale of our needs.

I have experience with SmugMug use for a photo club. After research showed that other photo clubs used SmugMug I set up the club's account and did all the maintenance until about one or two years ago, so I know the interface a bit. The club didn't continue using it, sadly... I know, for instance, that it really is set up to have only one true "Editor". But at the time I evaluated other sharing vehicles, what set SmugMug apart was its capability to accept images into a particular gallery by e-mail. That means a non-editor but "contributor" who has pictures of an event to contribute can send them immediately (attached) into a gallery. A small group of pre-approved "Users" can choose assets to publish by downloading them. These galleries also serve as proofing areas, e.g., a new staffers portrait shoot from which one must be chosen.

User training and acceptance of set procedures is always a tough battle for these kinds of asset-sharing scenarios. For example, if someone uses their phone to capture an event but has experience only of Facebook/Instagram uploads, will they be able/willing to participate? Never easy... Not a SmugMug issue to solve, I guess.

I am looking for more tools than a DropBox/Google Drive/OneDrive solution. I'm a professional photographer with experience in Marketing Communications roles (large company setting) and Digital Asset Management for Marcomm, too. For my pro work I use Zenfolio - choice I made many yeras ago. I'm sharing/showing the pictures I take of events in Zenfolio galleries as an "example" of a library. Staff and other members responsible for communications and development love the idea, which was new to them: avoid willy-nilly sending pictures back and forth by e-mail, leading to confusion of all sorts.

Anyone here have experience sharing SmugMug as a group?
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