Marketing is the business of promotions and the creation of tactics for selling goods and services. Whenever we step inside of a store whether it be a clothing store, or grocery store there are a team of people who are hired to create different marketing strategies to make the products appeal to the consumers and inevitably, make them purchase more merchandise. For example, when you enter into a supermarket the milk which is deemed a household necessity is usually located towards the back of the store as a strategy to make people walk throughout the store and purchase more than just the milk. In the digital world, marketing can be a bit different than what we can see in a store. Digital marketing is more personalized, simplified, and readily accessible. In the article, Why the Future of Digital Marketing is Pure PR, by Gerald Heneghan, its states,”And that’s exactly where PR excels. Once you have the technical elements down, the focus switches to consistently producing valuable, shareable content that appeals to your key audiences”. In the digital world, marketing experts create different ways to captivate its target audience in order to generate constant flow of revenue. For example, when we watch our favorite celebrities music videos that is a form of viral marketing because assuredly, they want us, the consumers to purchase their music. Viral Marketing tactics such as Facebook, Twitter, or even Instagram Posts, can be used to generate x amount of interests in order to drive sales towards an idea or even a product.”Viral marketing has generated a lot of excitement recently, in part because it seems like the ultimate free lunch: Pick some small number of people to seed your idea, product, or message; get it to go viral; and then watch while it spreads effortlessly to reach millions”, states Duncan Watts in his article on, Viral Marketing for the Real World”. The advancement of new media technology has created such a new form on marketing and industry on a whole. Through social media outlets, music videos, etc. people are able to market a variety of brands, and merchandise to drive sales and business in ways that weren’t even possible before. We are able to market in the digital world through online ads, and posts to customize the shopping experience and make it more fun and accessible to the public.

The world runs off of social media, LITERALLY! “Social Media has become not only a key part of the modern lifestyle, but a useful marketing channel for business of all sizes”‘ according to Tommy Landry in, “How Social Media Has Changed Us: Good and The Bad”. News stations, celebrities, mega-corporations, start-up companies alike as well as everyday people use social media as a way to communicate, and stay posted to whats going on. Many individuals claim that they can’t live without opening up their Twitter to post their daily tweets, others can’t go an hour without uploading a new snap, on Snapchat, it’s just how today’s society functions. As per major corporations and Industries, social media is used an an outlet to generate even greater revenue by allowing it’s consumers while they are on their Facebook accounts, and Instragram accounts to shop through ads presented. Companies are now able to customize shopping to curtail and appeal to specific consumers as well. For example, one day I went on Macy’s web page and added some shoes and jackets to my shopping cart, literally the next day or so I went on my Facebook account and in my news feed were those same shoes I was looking to purchase, with a direct link advertising that they were on sale. AT first I thought how creepy is that, how did thy know, and tun I thought how genius of them to create such a dynamic shopping experience. I know, I know, many beg to differ, that the new world of technology can be evasive and flat out too much, but we are living in a day and age where people crave the “new”.

Social Media websites such as Instagram, and Snapchat aside from promoting brands, and corporations allow people to create a new identity through usage of filters, and such like. Mark Zuckerberg is totally against people having two identities as quoted in Grosser’s writing, “having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity”, (Kirkpatrick,2010,pg 199). This is exactly why on Facebook, you are limited in creativity for example, on Facebook it asks you questions such as what your occupation is, and where you are from. I know for me I don’t want the world to know exactly everything about my personal info so I wanted to be creative and put that I live in the city of Make Believe, or Happy Island to disguise that and Facebook would allow me to post it because they want only places posted that actually exist. I felt so limited in my own personal creativity and that is why I tend to go on Instagram more than Facebook because I feel less restricted there.

To conclude, social media has effected us in more positive ways than I would say negative. It has helped mega corporations, and start-up to spread the word about new products, it has given a voice and allowed everyday people such as ourselves to create an image for ourselves and voice our own opinion. Social Media helps us to stay connected, and up-to-date with current events both near and far making us feel a part of something bigger on a whole.

How does marketing shift in digital media?

Digital media has experienced a shifted within its forms of marketing. Public relations consultants association found that 72% of PR agencies were offering SEO services in 2013. Which was followed by 60% increase in agencies budgets towards digital marketing. These reservations were used to employ PR’s. PR’s take on the job of finding candidates to conduct SEO services. The SEO service providers utilize the practice of search engine optimization to modify and improve the results listed. When user enters an agenda into search engine panels, the result listed in the drop down options are what they provide in a strategic way. Some companies have paid to be linked to certain browsers and/ or search engines results.

For example, have you noticed certain browsers direct you to specific search engines, the majority of them redirects you to google because they are able to pay for the coverage.

Needless to say, public relations are more focused on the relationship the corporate world has with its users. However, there’s another form of marketing; viral marketing.

Viral marketing begins with a user to an ad then a user to user relationship. Advertising firms forms lists of potential consumers that are most likely to click on ads. With this action they then produce the ads. In Viral Marketing for the Real World by Duncan Watts and Jonah Peretti, ” Pick some small number of people to seed your idea, product, or message; get it to go viral; and then watch while it spreads effortlessly to reach millions…The standard viral-marketing model is based on an analogy with the spread of infectious disease. It assumes that one starts with a seed of individuals who spread a message by infecting their friends, where the expected number of new infectious people generated by each existing one is called the “reproduction rate,”. This form of marketing reminded me of how Facebook provide the virtual games where your able to connect with your Facebook friends, through invitation to varies online games. Once they reach a certain stage in the game they may decide to send invitation to their friend in an exchange for coins or help; incentives.

I’m not completely sure on what you mean when you ask, how does marketing shift in digital media? From the information I’ve just obtain for the 3 article, digital media shift from PR’s and SEO services to companies and user. Both PR’s, SEO, companies, and users techniques works together to bring in the biggest bucks; through expansion and consistency.

Making a one hit wonder or receiving an opportunity for some kind of fame is a dream many people hope to attain. Viral content give people the opportunity to be remembered for an extended amount of time and also pays well with the right publicity and social media platform. The problem with going viral is that it is an extremely low percentage, difficult, and hard thing for people to catch onto. Going viral is a hit or miss when in the society we are in today. Life interests is constantly changing and cultural interests are molding with other cultural interests. It is amazing how often societal interests shifts. In this day and age, with all the technological advancements, it has changed the game of life tremendously. Many things have changed over time, including viral marketing. We an take away from the article that viral marketing means a persons idea that is rapidly shared in a short amount of time in which strikes interest in a consumer in where that person can invest in the product. In another one of the articles, it is said that people need to understand the difference between direct marketing, advertising, and public relations. This greatly affects the approach a person has when in sales. What this article is trying to get across is that they want to educate a potential public relation career endeavor and make sure they know why public relations is an important quality and strategy to keep in mind. I really liked how the article provided an analogy in which a person can understand the approach and situation a person would be involved in, in order to be identified specifically. Direct marketing would involve you saying a direct statement of what your product is and would assume the statement speaks for itself. Advertising approach would have another person say a direct statement of why your product is what it is. Public relations strategy would involve a down to the science process in where the public relator to the client would go through all the little steps in where it would make the client feel special. It is almost like selling without telling the client to buy the product. This is the public relations way of approaching potential clients.