Disrupting Marketing Landscape using Social Media

Disrupting Marketing Landscape using Social Media

Traditional media such as news publications, television have been ruling the roost for over a century on how content is delivered to the audience. Print media, Television, weekly, monthly magazines collecting and sharing regular news as well as quality content such as interviews from famous personalities.

We heard about digitization for a while now and how it is changing the marketing landscape for various industries. First it has changed telecom industry, moving away from analog to digital telephony. In the process came internet that has changed the face of many industries, especially media industry.

One of the changes I observed is the way NEWS is delivered to people. In late 80s in India, a newspaper was delivered home, one Black and white television with a big antenna on top of the house that needed to be adjusted so that people can view decent quality picture from TV channels sponsored by government. During late 90s there was surge of private entertainment channels as well as news channels creating their own content for public. News was curated, edited and delivered to public.  24/7 news channels took viewing to another level where debate on state issues has become synonymous with daily viewing along with soap operas.

Businesses used Advertisements on various media such as print, radio and television to reach their target customers. However, there was dependence on content that has maximum viewership such as Live sports, latest movies, successfully running TV shows where businesses could promote their brands.

In the internet age, one of the most visible campaigns was Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi’s social media campaign where agenda of the government and views of their party were proactively taken to people over internet based sites such as Twitter, Facebook etc. These digital campaigns differentiated current government in reaching out to young and majority population of India compared to their competitors. This shows social media is proving to be an effective medium where brands can directly reach out to their target audience with minimal/or no support from traditional mediums such as TV/news channels.

Today brands are directly communicating with their customers over social media. They are hearing complaints, promoting new campaigns also in the process are forced to come up with innovative ideas to draw attention from their and target and potential customers. These brands are starting to depend less on traditional media and focus more on communicating with their customer directly  and also promote their brands that can increase their bottom line. 

Is another disruption in Media Industry round the corner?