The Impact of Digital Media on Business
Modern media is no longer confined to a television or radio show, newspaper or advertisement.
[source: Chron] Instead, today’s media — from text to video and sound — can be saved and shared electronically, using everything from desktop computers to small mobile devices. This electronic dissemination of media has had a powerful impact on the way people communicate for personal reasons, school and even business. However, digital media has not had only a positive impact on business.
Faster Information
Thanks to digital media, companies can get their information out to the public faster than ever. Instead of printing inserts and waiting for the Sunday paper to announce their sales, companies now can let the world know about an exciting promotion through email, social networking, their Websites and Internet ads. However, digital media can spread bad information about a business just as fast as it can spread good. A video or camera taken with a cell phone or a Facebook status update featuring a company secret or faux pas can go viral within minutes, leaving a business’s reputation damaged when business before digital media would have been able to clear up the mess long before it went public.
Greater Reach
Digital media means businesses can reach more customers than ever before. A simple promotion featuring a giveaway or a freebie can earn a business hundreds or thousands of Facebook fans and email and text message subscribers, meaning that the business can send a message to these consumers with just a touch of a button. However, digital media also means that those consumers can reach back. Through negative comments to your Facebook page and other social networking sites, like Twitter and your blog, customers can use digital media to take a complaint that would have otherwise been between the two of you world wide.
Technology
Using digital media means using new technology both to create and support the media. New technology can be an asset for your business. When you adopt smartphones and laptops in order to use digital media, you also can positively influence other areas of your business. For example, such mobile technology makes communication among employees much easier. However, new technology is expensive, and sometimes it does not have the positive effect its champions think it will have. For example, “Information Week” notes that a number of companies gave its employees home computers when the Internet first became popular hoping that those employees would be a positive influence for the company online. However, the program really ended up causing support and tax problems for the companies and employees.
Options
Thanks to digital media, businesses now have many more options that they can choose from when seeking to get word out about their businesses. Instead of choosing among a TV or radio commercial or a print advertisement, they can now create media that is a combination of audio, visual, text and interactive media. This mixed media can appeal to a larger audience with differentiated preferences. However, it is also more costly to keep up with the ever-changing technology and may require the creation of new strategists who can think and create digital.