Digital Media - Class meets Career

                                          

Digital media has been something which I've been extremely interested in. Mainly because it's fun, it's interactive, helps you connect and is in fact, quite practical.  I've worked for a tech company where it was necessary for me to incorporate digital media in my daily work routine. We used Google docs for almost everything - from inter-office brainstorming sessions (Delhi-Ann Arbour-California) to planning the next team offsite. We all had our calendars linked and you could view anyone's calendar in the office - extremely helpful when we had to schedule meetings. Google Analytics was something I was trained for as a part of my job and I,  in my completely unbiased opinion, believe that it's one of the best analytics softwares out there. It helps you track your website data - who's clicking, what keywords are being used, you can set golas and funnels to see if there's a certain pattern in which your website is being viewed and many more other extremely helpful features.

This is the more serious stuff. I suppose my generation was, or I should say, is, the part of the social media revolution. I remember my first social networking account - Hi5, and then there was Orkut (developed by Google, mostly popular in India and Brazil!) and then came Facebook and Twitter. Facebook still happens to be one of my favorite means of entertainment. I'm not extremely active but I do like to read what other people have been posting. I think I created a twitter account the day I heard about it, which was quite a while back. But then, I deleted it in a few days. For me, it was like facebook, but only with status messages...and no fun! As a part of my digital media and PR class I had to create another one and I did begin to be a bit more active on it. But I'm still on a huge twitter fan (a future job in PR may change that view completely.) I do realise it's importance in some areas. For example, during the Japan earthquake, when all the phone lines went down, there were a huge amount of twitter updates by people in Japan, letting their friends and family know of their whereabouts. 

I'm not going to delete my account this time. I do get some interesting tid-bits of news once in a while.

One if the things I was introduced to in the digital media class and did get hooked on to is StumbleUpon, which lets you share and discover new websites with every click, depending upon your preferences which you select while creating an account. I can spend hours on StumbleUpon and not get bored. 

As a futre PR professional, I can use all of this new knowledge to my advantage. I can look for jobs using LinkedIn. Once I have a job, I can track my campaigns using Google Analytics. We can use wikis at work to create and edit any amount of content online among a group, having the ability to comment on that content as it's being edited. Since there is a huge amount of population which is online, we can target them using facebook, twitter, youtube and so on. Apart from networking, a lot of information can be shared through blogs. What I really learnt in this class is not really about the existence of these websites and softwares but their application in the real world. 

Fashion PR

The world of fashion public relations has always fascinated me. Mainly because it's an amalgamation of something I love -fashion, and something I wish to be great at someday - PR! This is why, when asked to create a video for my digital media class, I decided to make a video on something that explains what fashion PR is about what it takes to get in.

                   






Source:

http://www.fashion-stylist.net/blog/2009/02/19/how-to-chose-a-fashion-pr-an-interview-with-alison-lowe/

New PR Tool: Augmented Reality

Now we’ve all played video games as kids. Today, computer graphics have become way more sophisticated and are pushing borders of virtual reality. Today, engineers and researchers are pulling graphics out of your TV screen and computers are integrating them into real-world environments. This new technology, called augmented reality, between what's real and what's computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell.

Now what makes it so special in the world of public relations. Well, to start with, we’ve all seen huge billboards in most most of the major city centers. Now imagine if you could be a part of that billboard, only for a few seconds. Wouldn’t that make you feel great as a consumer. You could try on new products, have a little bit of fun and maybe even encouraged to buy that product. In simple terms, it makes a product seem more fun. More than just what it is supposed to do. And a lot of consumers today want that extra element (which is why all the hype about limited edition!!) And this is exactly what the Adidas AR campaign has done. I’m not too sure how many will buy. But if definitely creates the hype! 

Another extremely interesting example of an augmented reality campaign is the Tissot campaign that I came across, while doing the research for this blog. It has been developed by  virtual reality specialist Holition and lets wearers experiment with the touch-screen features of Tissot's watches. Videos showcasing the features of each watch are displayed. Lynne Murray, brand director at Holition, said: "With the rapid growth in online retail and customer-buying habits becoming increasingly more complex, brands have to work harder to secure sales. Combining Holition's intuitive understanding of retail with augmented reality, this technology platform seamlessly integrates into a brands business strategy, enabling brands to experience a higher level of consumer engagement with their product."

Personally, I think the idea is extremely clever and novel and makes the best use of print and digital, taking social media to that next level. Also, it’s a brilliant way for a company/brand to interact with a customer or a potential customer. 

There are various ways how augmented reality can make an influence in PR campaigns. With the help of augmented reality once can engage people with the PR campaign and possibly see the public pay more attention to the campaign when interacting with whatever the augmented reality is. This will help expose not only the message of the campaign but also that of a brand/product. It is also seen as to be quite fun as it takes the user into the virtual world where there is more information to grasp.

Also, adding the influence of social networking it makes it more available to share with friends. This consequently will lead to more people getting involved in the campaign and brand awareness rising to a great extent.  Just to recap with augmented reality brands will be able communicate with their key publics much easier and with more creativity.  I believe that it will become a great tool for many organisations in the future as a tool to use to send out key messages and help communicate with key publics.

Sources

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/1000616/Tissot-debuts-augmented-reality-campaign-latest-range/

http://www.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/21/augmented-reality-iphone-advertising

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/4288-10-mindblowing-augmented-reality-apps-and-videos

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7007.pdf

http://www.threebillion.com/adidas-augmented-reality-the-pr-is-all-in-the-execution/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/26506074/Augmented-Reality-for-Public-Relations-How-the-Outernet-will-Affect-Culture-and-Commerce