What Is Digital Media? And Why Should You Care?
Looking for the real definition of digital media? Any form of media which is encrypted in machine-readable form can be called digital media. Digital media is any media which depends on electronic devices for its creation, distribution, view, and storage. Some of the popular examples of digital media include digital games, software, video games, digital videos, websites, web pages, digital audio (MP3, eBooks, etc.), social media, etc. In today’s technology world, digital media can be said to be an uncomfortable replacement for print media.
While print media will still be around for sometime, digital media had taken its stronghold especially in the digital space.
The Death Of Printed Media
As a business consultant in Malaysia, there are many questions about printed media and it’s effectiveness. The public had understood that printed media is getting out from the hot league.
If you have the same thought and question, the answer to this is simply a massive “yes”.
Let’s take the Star newspaper in Malaysia—a prominent and by far the most popular English language newspaper in Malaysia. For years, they had dominated the printed media industry and in 2019, they finally went all out with promoting their newspaper app.
The growth of digital media had surpassed printed media in many ways and not only in Malaysia. In many cases, digital media had delivered its knockout blow towards printed media a.k.a. the death of printed media.
The Impact of Digital Media
Digital media is now everywhere. From digital signages to online applications. In the era that we live today, the needs of digital media had increased multiple folds.
Digital media had also contributed directly and indirectly with digital media marketing—an online form of marketing that involves using the Internet and other online means.
What is digital media marketing (and why digital media marketing matters)?
I hate to break it to you, but the impact of digital media marketing goes far and wide. Brick and mortar businesses are now heading towards digital transformation, creating eCommerce stores and building online visibility.
With the emergence of easy to use eCommerce platforms (Shopify for example) and under 5-minutes digital marketing advertisement, it is much easier to launch and build an online sales funnel that never sleeps.
Can you imagine having a digital marketing sales force (program) that never sleep, doing sales and marketing 24/7 for your business? Affordable marketing tools such as ClickFunnels make it possible.
Just like print media, digital media marketing require some skills before it can be effectively enjoyed.
Therefore, learning essential skills such as digital media and communication, digital media marketing, digital media design and digital media production are critical steps to build successful marketing plans (and executing them).
Challenges Associated With Digital Media
There are lots of challenges associated with the use of digital media. A lot of these challenges have a thing or two to do with intellectual property and copyright laws. Although copyright laws are still in place, they seem to be powerless as far as digital media is concerned. This is most likely because of the ease with which digital media can be shared.
When an individual writes a book or creates a film, there are laws which ensure that such content cannot be reproduced in any format. Everyone that is into the creation of content is aware of these laws and sticks to them.
Well, when digital media is involved, people are not exactly sure what the laws binding certain contents are. People share contents freely on social media without infringing on any law whatsoever.
While there are still, lots of issues associated with the use of digital media, the absence of very well defined law appears to be easily understood by the average person.
Summary
Digital media is definitely a form of online marketing that will takes its toll againsts printed media. As a matter of fact, digital media marketing will be (and often considered) a powerful strategy especially for businesses to build brand visibility, generating leads and growth.