Digital Media

In order to achieve success in today’s world, a business absolutely must be able to reach out to and communicate with a vast audience. This is how they convey messages, answer questions, solve problems and communicate a sufficient amount of information about their products and services in order to engage consumers and create conversions. For this, they need a tool, and media is that tool. Put quite simply, media are the tools that we use to communicate across distances and time to a broad audience, such as books, magazines, newspapers, film, radio, and television. But while these forms of media have worked very well for quite a lengthy period of time, the fact is that businesses who fail to embrace the digital age and incorporate digital media into their communications are unlikely to do as well as those businesses who do utilize digital media.

What is Digital Media

The term “digital” refers to the use of computers. It also includes the software used to run computers, as well as the movement and storage of digital information. However, digital media is far more complex than simply media that is produced with digital tools. After all, you could consider radio on the internet and newspaper on a tablet to fall into the category of digital media, but this field actually comprises far more, and can, therefore, do far more for a business than digitized radio or newspapers could ever hope to do.

In a simple sense, one could consider digital media to be digitized content, like text, graphics, audio, and video, that is transmitted via the internet or computer networks. More specifically, however, digital media opens the door to interactivity and group forming, which is simply not possible in the same way or to the same extent with traditional media. This interactivity occurs because most computer networks are designed so that one can send a message and receive a response–something that is not possible with one-way (also known as broadcast) media. This means that while traditional media forms can deliver the same message to a considerable audience, it cannot accept return messages. Considering how many consumer decisions are emotional and how connected consumers would like to feel with the businesses they are interacting with, this interactivity provided by digital media is critical. Interactivity can be as simple as choosing and rating shows or as complex as posting pictures and comments to online posts.

Group forming occurs on networked digital media because it is based on computer software that allows for the organization of groups around any sort of topic. Group forming is very beneficial to any business because it can help individuals to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate on everything from parties to brand promotions. Businesses who monitor groups that have to do with their brand, products, services or business, in general, can get a better read on what consumers do and do not like and what they need to do in order to better deliver exactly what consumers need and want.