The Digital Landscape

The digital landscape is complicated and wildly interconnected.

Trying to make sense of this space, from a communications planning perspective, can be a daunting task.

I’ve provided a quick illustration of this; although I only put you in the center of the chart to make you feel good…the reality is the conversation is happening all around you, and you/your organization is probably one of the smaller nodes to the side.

How do you make sense of it all?

The key is to tie your activities back to your original objectives. You need to choose the right tool(s) for the job.

And, a good approach to this is to look at each tool and evaluate which tools are best suited for either building advocacy, raising awareness or driving product trial.

So if the goal is building awareness, you are generally looking at a tool that allows you to ‘interrupt’ your audience. It’s about saying, ‘hey pay attention to me’. In traditional media billboards, newspaper ads, television ads are all aimed at awareness building. Typically your message is short and frequent. The goal is to drive a large amount of traffic into the top of the funnel. In the digital landscape, tools such Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, or even Twitter can be used for this purpose (of course you should also be engaging on Twitter for building advocacy as well).

A framework for making sense of the social media landscape.

Once you get a large number of people paying attention to you, the goal is to get them further engaged with you. It’s about building advocacy, and any tool that allows you to connect on a deeper level with an audience is really suited for this task. Most social media tools fall into this category. A blog and LinkedIn are good starting points for most consultants. For businesses you may also want a Facebook fan page.

And, finally, if your goal is increase product trial then you may want to look at offering tools that allow your customers to rate or review your product. Many e-commerce solutions offer this ability and depending on your industry you may look to tools such as Yelp etc.