12 Days of Digital Signage

The 12 Days of Christmas is a time-honored holiday classic, bringing most of us a feeling of warmth and nostalgia each year (though it conveniently skipped over the issue of what our narrator ended up doing with those 23 birds.)

This year, we have a different take on the classic, where our true love isn’t into swans, drummers, or golden rings—instead opting to send over everything our narrator needs for a complete office digital signage installation.

Our 12 days of digital signage:

12 Perfect Markets

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…not 12 drummers drumming, but something even better: 12 perfect target markets for a digital signage installation.

• Office buildings
• Government facilities
• Healthcare clinics
• Hotels and hospitality
• Restaurants
• Schools and universities
• Manufacturing
• Parks and stadiums
• Retail organizations
• Real estate
• Religious venues

11 Videos Streaming

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me…11 videos streaming (a little easier on the ears than those pipers piping!)

Video streaming is one of the best ways to put your digital signage to work. With high-resolution displays and easy-to-use content management systems, any venue can bring live video feed to work for its customers.

And naturally, office digital signage also works great for employee communication; companies can place video screens behind the scenes to remind employees about workplace safety issues, protocols to follow, or new initiatives to push.

10 Content Layouts

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…10 content layouts, each personalized to my brand’s specific company goals. Now isn’t that more thoughtful than a bunch of leaping lords?

In fact, these content layouts produce a key advantage for digital signage over traditional advertising mediums: They’re completely hands-off.

All you’ll need to do is choose which layout template works best, what content you’ll include, and when to schedule it. Your digital signage screen and content player will do the rest.

9 Signage Players

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…nine signage players (and not a single dancing lady in sight).

This is a particularly thoughtful gift, as content players can be considered the “engine” of a digital signage solution. While the screens themselves display the content, your signage player actually houses your content and displays it on the screen when it’s needed. Think of it as the gatekeeper for your office digital signage communication.

8 Alerts Alerting

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…eight alerts alerting (CAP alerts, that is!)

Common alerting protocol (CAP) is a system used by the federal government and various local agencies to distribute emergency messaging across a network of connected systems all at the same time. These alerts generally relate to issues of public emergency where awareness counts—making them a crucial integration into your digital signage solution.

By staying connected to CAP alerts involving weather, natural disaster, or crime, you can keep your visitors safe and up-to-date on what’s going on in the area, no matter what other purpose your office digital signage serves.

7 Screens a Sizing

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me…seven screens a sizing—a simple way to make your screens the best they can be.

Digital screens have optimal viewing ranges and angles, depending on the size of the screen and the type of device you’re using. If your signage is in the wrong location, it’ll lose some of its impact for the viewers.

This is why digital signage professionals take care to properly size screens before each installation. It’s a simple process—but one that’s absolutely crucial to digital signage success.

6 Signage Systems

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…a choice of six signage systems (that offer better benefits than all those laying geese).

Your choice of office digital signage system will determine what content applications you’ll have access to, your cloud capabilities, and what other integrations you’ll be able to deploy:

• Xhibit HD Signage System
• Xhibit Touch
• HD Video Wall Systems
• Chrome OS Signage System
• LG WebOS Signage System
• BrightSun Signage System

Each offers different benefits, and your signage installer will help you find the one that best suits your communication needs.

5 Content Widgets

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…five con-tent widgeeeeeeeeeeets (and scene!)

Forget the golden rings for a second and check these out. These content applications are what really bring your office digital signage to life. Whether you need to integrate social media feeds into your layout, pull up local transit information, or just tell your visitors about the weather, content widgets make it happen.

However, your true love made one mistake: You shouldn’t limit yourself to just five. Great digital signage strategies coordinate dozens of these widgets together to produce dynamic, eye-catching messaging.

4 Donor Walls

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…four donor walls (and isn’t that just seasonally appropriate?)

Yes, a great application of digital signage is to pay tribute to the donors who have invested generously in your company or local area. By highlighting the contributions of specific donors, you’re doing them a favor by putting them in the spotlight—but you’re always raising awareness of fundraising efforts and making it more likely that others might contribute as well.

Christmas is a great season for taking a moment and appreciating those around us, so make sure you give this option a chance.

3 Menu Boards

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me…three menu boards (listing all the things that ain’t free!)

Of course, menu boards referring to the digital menus that restaurants, hotels, and other hospitality-based organizations use. We’ve discussed the benefits of these at length in previous posts, and for good reason—they’re great communication tools that act as intermediaries between employee and customer.

It’s all about providing information in an intuitive fashion and decreasing the effort your employees need to make; a great goal for any organization.

2 Metric Displays

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me…two metric displays (for all those boardroom meetings putting you to sleep!)

When it comes to employee communication, you can’t beat digital signage and its metric display tools. An offshoot of the widgets described above, these tools pull live data from external sources and automatically display it as graphs and charts that are easy to read at a glance.

This is a great option for dynamically presenting information to other team members, and for helping teams stay on top of key performance metrics describing their job performance.

1 Custom Signage Inquiry

And finally, on the first (last?) day of Christmas my true love gave to me…a custom digital signage inquiry.

In other words, your true love hooked you up with a digital signage quote specifically tailored to your company. Now if that’s not love, we don’t know what love is.

Joke and holiday rhyming aside, there are plenty of great ways to put your digital signage installation to work. Once you see how easy it is to deploy and flexible it is to update, we’re willing to bet that you won’t go back.

Happy holidays, everyone!