Get on the rapid evolutionary curve  of the digital media juggernaut

Wherever we are, digital media is playing an increasingly bigger role in the marketplace and in our global culture. If we generally look at the history of the communication industry, it all started with print and then the radio came in, followed by the TV and now, naturally the internet has taken over in the last decade or two. So, in the next 5–10 years, we are going to, unfortunately, see a lot of print material being replaced by digital.

While that trend has already hit America, things are slowly catching up globally as well. This means that digital media will require more and more people who are proficient in this domain and who can reach out to people in an engaging manner. Digital media, as an industry, is only set to grow and with its growth, it will bring in a lot of career opportunities and perhaps even careers we don’t even know about right now. 

Digital connect: Prateek has trained professionals in the domain of digital media and marketing

The most important thing about digital media is that it’s an ever-evolving field and is very dynamic in nature. Let’s say that what was happening in the industry a year ago, is not happening today and whatever is happening today, may not happen tomorrow. For instance, video content has picked up big time this year. You see these short videos everywhere and those same videos will also be sharing the news with you.

With people’s attention spans going down, they want quick bites of information. Whether it’s a news app like Inshorts, or Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or YouTube videos, this form of visual media (a combination of visual and traditional content format) is going to evolve and in the next 10 years we might see a lot of use of augmented/virtual reality as well as 3D content. The visual and VR part of media will pick up and it will bring in a lot of new career options in the domain of creating videos, apps and experiences. 

If we talk about growth, digital media is a career option that can bring people immense growth. On the other hand, if we talk about sustainability, one cannot hope to learn something in 2018 and then do the same job for the next 10 years. To sustain and grow in this field, what everybody will be required to do in the forthcoming years is keep learning and only then will one keep growing. So, no matter what school or university one comes from, once you are in this field, everyone is practically on the same page. And then one needs to keep learning on-the-job and finding what’s new or figuring out how they can evolve with the changing times. 

Besides maintaining the social media face of the company, digital media experts have to organise digital resources for media campaigns and present their progress and initiatives to executives in other departments

One of the primary challenges faced by digital media experts is the ever-evolving media itself. Other than that, there are very few professional courses today, which actually encompass all that you need to make it big in this field. This is a relatively new field and there are a few places that offer a comprehensive course or programme to make you skilled enough in this career. 

Thankfully there are some specialised courses, but the knowledge of that course will probably last for 1-2 years beyond which one has to keep putting in an effort to learn from various sources. Hence, digital media is a lucrative course as not many people are experts in this field and the demand is extremely high and every single organisation needs to have a digital media and advertising arm in-house. 

(The author is the founder of Digital Defynd, a global digital learning and marketing hub. Prateek is also a partner trainer with Digital Vidya, Google India, Confederation of Indian Industries, Intracen Sri Lanka (United Nations – WTO), BCG (Boston Consulting Group) and The Knowledge Engineers UK. In the past, he has conducted workshops for various reputed organisations such as NASSCOM, CII, SBI, Philips and many more. He also conducts training for colleges and B-schools including the IIMs. Prateek is regularly invited to speak at conferences and train professionals globally.)