Digital media in today’s society

Now I spoke in the Digital Media Forum in Dubai, also shared my thoughts about the evolution of public relations — as it changes from its tried-and-tested (and decades-old)’traditional’ approach to one that amuses the digital environment.


From the days where media releases, column ins, interviews and press conferences were the focus of PR professionals, and I clarified that convergence of media platforms along with the explosion of technology on social channels is altering the entire field of PR. The focus of PR once was just on distributing content — a one dimensional approach void of engagement to spread messages to broad audiences.

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In this digital era, the attention of PR is similar to it’s ever been; there are far better ways to gain in depth understanding of audiences, to target and engage one-on-one, to drive conversations between consumers and brands, to leverage the ability of third party acceptance, and to measure the impact and consequence of PR activity.
Among others, 1 thing I stressed now, was that the one constant in this time of PR development is the significance of excellent content — that actually has become the foundation of public relations since day one. But in the digital era, content is even more important for a few reasons.

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Nowadaysour target audiences no more purchase printed copies of papers in the daytime or thick magazines at the supermarket; audiences consume most articles on their smartphones and anticipate it to be eye-catching, eloquent, and more often than not in movie format. They want brands to be publishers of quality and interesting content, that is shareable and share worthy — think infographics, movie clips and vlogs to list a few. In the electronic age, this comprehension is like never before. Content is essential for earned, owned and shared websites, and must resonate with the target audiences in order to get a change in understanding or understanding to take place, and finally actions be taken.

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And content must be quality due to the value of SEO. Google’s algorithm worth quality authority and content, made possible only via the creation of content in any format across made, shared and owned media platforms. Remember also that quality material is important for third party advocates –‘influencers’ — to be able to drive trust and empower influence one of our target audiences.
‘Content is King’ so that the cliché goes, and this has never been more important than it is now.