People love to slap acronyms on everything, especially in the technology world. And since that's where we live, it's important to define these acronyms - it gets confusing otherwise. From SaaS, IaaS and PaaS to POS, CRM and CMS, techies give you a few letters and assume you know it all. For that reason, let's make it the unoffical acronym week here.On Monday we broke down SaaS and today we'll talk about CMS. If you work for a recreation organization, here's what you need to know about content management systems (CMS):
What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?
A content management system is a tool that allows you to manage the content of a website without technical skills. You can upload text, images, videos and more to your website behind the scenes through a Microsoft Word-type interface. Think Wordpress or Joomla. As you enter in pictures and text with easy-to-use buttons and clean white space, the system will translate it into the messy code needed to make it live on the web. With a CMS, you can update your website without a web designer as the middleman.
CASE STUDY: Why East Bay Switched from Joomla to ACTIVE
CMS Benefits
1. Easy editing - These systems are designed with non-technical people in mind, so it's easy to add new information to the website.2. Ability to spread responsibility - Certain users can get access to different parts of the website. That way, each person can be responsible to update his or her department.3. More information for visitors - Since it's easy to update, visitors benefit from fresh content. Without a CMS, websites can typically look stale quickly.4. Access from anywhere - Users simply log in through a web browser to access and update the website. People can update from home, the office, or any other computer over the internet.5. Fewer costs - Finally, it's expensive to pay a web designer to update your website. With a CMS, your website is in your hands and you don't need to pay someone with coding knowledge to update it. If you have a designer in house, this means they can focus on more important web initiatives rather than posting an article about the upcoming Daddy Daughter Dance.
