Digitization and modernization go hand in hand. It is the future of social media, of life and of society. It is constantly changing and to keep up with it, it is important to understand its basics. This article talks about the essence of digital marketing.
What separates good content from great content is a willingness to take risks and push the envelope.
~Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot.
This quote beautifully sums up what digital marketing is, as it is nothing, but, taking risks and pushing the envelope to accommodate new trends.
But in more technical terms, digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium.
As we are moving to the era of modernization and digitalization, social media has become an important part of our lives. Youngsters are glued to their phones, which improves marketing reach greatly. These days, social media proves to be a better platform for wide reach and that is why companies are hiring people just to maintain their image and goodwill by acing the social media game.
Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp help producers have a wider reach by helping them to directly come in contact with consumers online.
WhatsApp has created a separate version named WhatsApp Business that enables us to have a business presence on WhatsApp, hence helping us to communicate more efficiently with customers, and helping us grow our business. This is being widely used by small retailers dispatching their goods through post who then communicate with their consumers and receive feedback in this easy, efficient and effective manner.
On Twitter and Facebook companies link their website and also their new launches to their account which makes it easier to spread the product name effectively in a short span and spending less amount of money if the product is convincing.
Instagram provides special settings for people/influencers by upgrading their account to business account enabling them to enjoy these benefits by having deep insights about their post’s engagement and reach. They can also link their products and partners with influencers.
Facebook has now become an app for a slightly older generation,i. e. moms and dads, while Instagram has become one for youngsters. A good marketer must know their target group, so as to not advertise the wrong product at the wrong platform. Twitter is one such platform where there is no defined age group; celebrities, youngsters, elders and middle aged people, everybody is present on twitter. That is why there are often greater blunders on Twitter than on other social media platform.
Moreover, companies like Swiggy and Zomato have upped the social media game by using Modern Age marketing tools–memes to improve their marketing, and it is working very well for them so far. The Diwali memes went viral and the new Instagram song feature was also perfectly utilized to break the internet by Swiggy.
On YouTube, companies can come to an agreement with big and small influencers alike to launch, introduce and advertise their products by offering sponsorship of their videos in return. This is seen since the rise of reaction channels on YouTube, Indian companies are advertising through the means of these foreign channels, like the number one channel under this category Jaby Koay can be seen advertising for Sunday mattresses and several other Youtubers for similar things.
While marketing digitally, one must be very careful, as the world of social media is fickle, once something wrong is put up, it takes mere minutes for it to go viral, even after deleting from the account; it will not be erased from anywhere else. Precaution is always better than the cure, and must be taken by the customers while buying products as well, because as easy digital marketing is, it can also be the source of several fraudulent activities.
Thus, digital marketing doesn’t have any perfect rulebook to be followed to the t; rather, it depends on people’s inherent ability to harness any and every new change or trend for their own benefit and their product’s promotion.