What Is Digital Media? A Complete Guide
Digital media is any form of media that uses electronic devices for distribution. This form of media can be created, viewed, modified and distributed via electronic devices. Digital media is commonly used software, video games, videos, websites, social media, and online advertising. Even though digital media is part of our everyday culture, business owners still find themselves uncomfortable with replacing their paper advertising with internet marketing services.
However, with the constant shifts in technology, one cannot deny the influence that digital media has over our way of life. It changes the way we educate, entertain, publish and interact with one another on a daily basis. And, as a result of this influence, digital media pushes the business world out of the industrial age and into the information age. Business plans are being adjusted to fit a digital strategy. We’re no longer writing things with pens on paper, but instead communicating through digital devices.
We can all see the effects of media in our day to day lives. But, how does digital media help your business?
We’ll discuss three ways. Digital media:
- facilitates social interaction,
- levels the playing field for small businesses, and
- aligns with how consumers shop.
Digital Media Facilitates Social Interaction
The digital age connects people in ways that were never possible before. Because 7 out of 10 Americans are on social media, individuals may maintain friendships across different time zones, regardless of the distance between. 79% share life milestones with their friends and family on social media.
Facebook actually encourages this interaction, boosting words like “congratulations”. This helps provide users with a more engaging feed!
What does this have to do with your business, though?
Special moments share one thing in common: they’re all highly emotional.
While all brands may not have a product or service that naturally lends itself to this narrative, all businesses can find a way to create a space for themselves within these special shared moments.
The goal is to have your brand shared with these milestones. This is a good way to slingshot your social media presence, thus boosting brand recognition.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND BRAND RECOGNITION
Some of the motivation can stem from incentives, such as discounts. But, some of your customers may choose to share your brand because it aligns with his or her specific beliefs, allowing them to take a more public stance on values and issues.
Furthermore, when consumers mention a brand in their social media posts about life milestones:
- 45% want the brand to engage in return by liking or commenting on their content,
- 45% hope for a discount, and
- 30% want the brand to share his or her post.
Consumers realize that brands often encourage and share content from their customers, and having your post shared by a brand is an exciting motivation to mention a brand, especially when experiencing a milestone or other significant event.
As social media’s role in our day-to-day life continues to grow, so do the opportunities for businesses to connect to consumers. Whether it’s asking their peers for recommendations, or praising one of their “holy grail” products, this generation has already started the bandwagon for recognizing and sharing the role that their favorite brands play in their lives, including major life milestones.
If your business can assess and tap into the emotions behind your audience’s behavior, you’ll better your chance of connecting and turning your audience into not only lifelong customers but also advocates for your brand.
Digital Media Levels the Playing Field for Small Business
We’ve all seen it happen. A huge company comes into town and wipes out all of the small specialty shops. The only online equivalent to this is Amazon. It’s hard to compete with big-name recognition or millions of marketing dollars spent by larger companies.
Digital media helps marketing for small, local stores, both in physical locations and for online selling sites. Smaller businesses can actually hold a top-ranking position using digital media and marketing tactics.
Who’s to know whether the professional-looking website with provocative pictures and compelling content comes from a three person operation or multi-million dollar company?
You could be two blocks away or 2,000 miles away. You may not want it, as a small business owner, but a global customer base is there for the taking, with digital media marketing.
Like we mentioned earlier, social media effectiveness boils down to engagement. This gives the small business owner a leg up on the larger competition. If a business doesn’t actively engage with its customers, it won’t have successful social media marketing.
The use of digital media platforms to promote a brand helps receive feedback from customers. And, when managed correctly using preset metrics, using digital media to promote your business can be an effective and cost-efficient form of online advertising.
Digital Media Aligns With How Consumers Shop
The average American spends over 24 hours a week online. Over 1 trillion searches are performed online each year, and over 8 billion Facebook video views occur daily.
Most consumers look for products or services online. Regardless if it’s a friend sharing a life event (and how your brand made it better), the result of a search query, or a promotional video, if customers find your business through any of these, you can thank digital media.
You’ll need an online presence to be relevant to the vast majority of your customers. This is why digital media marketing is essential to business.
What are the Three Types of Digital Media?
To run a successful online marketing campaign, you’ll need a digital marketing plan to make sure your content will reach as many customers as possible.
There are 3 types of digital media: owned, paid, and earned media.
- Owned media
- Paid media
- Earned media
Owned Digital Media
Owned media is any online asset that you control. This type of media is typically unique to your brand. Digital media platforms include your website, social media channels, blogs, videos, etc.
If you optimize your owned media for SEO, your business will show when prospective clients search for topics relevant to what you offer. The more owned digital media you create, the more visible your business becomes. This gives your brand authority, thus increasing your ranking on the search engine results page.
Owned digital media gives you the opportunity to control the conversation surrounding your business. To make the most of owned media, you must commit to delivering valuable content on a consistent basis.
Paid Digital Media
Paid media promotes your online content to improve traffic to your owned media assets. This form of media typically includes PPC, local service ads, paid search ads, display ads, and Facebook ads.
Even though paid media can be expense, when used correctly, it exposes your content and brand to a wider audience. A good marketing agency can use paid media and properly done PPC management to direct the right customers to your website. Furthermore, paid digital media advertising can offer significant and measurable results within your campaigns, thus supporting your overall marketing strategy.
Earned Digital Media
Earned media is advertising generated by your customers. When customers advocate for your brand via word of mouth, social media, reviews, testimonials, shares, re-posts, etc. This is the best form of endorsement a business can have.
Earned digital media is an effective way to grow your brand while cutting down your customer acquisition costs. However, you will have to monitor this regularly, because, unlike owned digital media, you don’t have control over what’s being said.
Strong organic rankings on search engines and high-quality content are two of the forces that drive your earned media.
What’s the Difference Between Digital Media and Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the act of placing content (Facebook posts, banner ads, paid search ads, etc) in the right place, at the right time in order to reach the most valuable customers. Digital media is assets or content. Media refers to the digital platforms such as your website, emails, social media channels by which you are able to convey your digital marketing.
Digital marketing refers to getting specific information about products or services and target audiences so that ads can be placed in the most efficient and effective way for maximum profitability and ROI.
Digital marketing is marketing with the help of digital media platforms and digital media. The two go hand in hand.
Digital Media Marketing for Business
Because more consumers turn to technology for their shopping needs, as a business you need to use digital marketing to reach those customers. In order to thrive, businesses must have a digital presence, whether that be on a website, using social media platforms, SEO, or ideally, a combination of these.
Using digital marketing, you can reach a larger audience in a way that is both measurable and cost-effective. Analytics-driven digital media provides the opportunity to reach more consumers for less money than traditional marketing methods while getting to know your customer base, thus increasing brand loyalty.
Most businesses that effectively use digital marketing and digital marketing services, increase sales and revenue which is ultimately what business is all about. Isn’t it?
With digital media, you can hone your marketing and target your best consumer. By employing cookies and online tracking tools, we can help you better understand what your customer wants and get them to begin positively engaging with your brand. To put it simply, digital media will boost your current marketing campaign.
