Evolution of Digital Media Strategies in Communications Firms

This essay explores the evolving digital media strategies employed by media and communications firms to gain a competitive edge. It begins with a critical analysis of the market, utilizing Porter's Five Forces to assess the competitive landscape and challenges faced by these firms, including client acquisition, talent management, and expectation management amidst a changing media environment. The essay then examines the shift in strategies from 2008 to 2018, highlighting the importance of networking, technology adoption, web-based data monitoring, social awareness campaigns, social media marketing, and data analytics. It contrasts successful strategies like data analytics and social media engagement with less effective approaches, such as generic technology implementation. The essay concludes with examples of international media giants like Walt Disney and Twenty-First Century Fox, illustrating their diverse strategies for expanding their consumer base. Desklib provides access to this essay and many more resources to aid students in their academic pursuits.

Running head : DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
A strategy can be defined as a key approach or a plan which an organization seeks to
undertake in order to achieve success. A strategy plays a key role in determining the position of
any firm in the competitive business environment. The media and communication landscape has
undergone a huge change in the past decade and this had lead to a need in changing their various
strategies as well (Danesi 2014). This strategy has been focused on making the firm gain
dominance in the market and sustains the competitive edge.
The given essay will throw light on the various strategies which have been applied by the
media and communications firm to gain a competitive edge in the business environment. A
critical analysis of the market they operate in will be done along with discussion on the various
challenges that the company tends to face. The main part of the given essay will discuss the
strategies applied by these firms and how they have evolved with time. Certain examples of
international firms will also be discussed in order to see how the firm adapts to the given
strategies (Carim and Warwick 2013). Certain recommendations as to how to improve these
strategies will also be provided.
The given section will be critically analyzing the current market place for the digital and
communication firms. The market place analysis goes a long way in helping the firm to become
more customer centric and enhancing their activities (Harrison and Wessels 2013). It goes a long
way in helping the firm to understand what the customer’s desire and what the company should
offer them with respect to the products and services.
Marketplace Analysis
The market analysis also goes a long way in improving the effectiveness of one`s
operations and check how a company`s strategy is effective as compared to its competitors. Very

2DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
often certain firms tend to perform SWOT Analysis in order to identify the effectiveness of the
operations and the current market conditions. This analysis of the market place can be done using
various strategic management tools like Pestle analysis and Porter`s five forces (Curran, Fenton
and Freedman 2016). For the purpose of this essay, the Porter`s five forces will be discussed.
The porters five forces is a strategic management tools which reviews the organization`s
environment, in this case the media and communications business environment from five
different viewpoints.
The first viewpoint is the threat of new entrants which can be described as the possibility
that there will be new entries in the industry. In case of the media and communications segment,
the threat of new entrants is comparatively low as because there exists high set up and
distribution costs. The next aspect is the bargaining power of the supplier which can be described
as the authority of the suppliers in the value chain. In the media industry the given power is
moderate as the costs associated in the given industry are more or less fixed (Gauntlett 2015).
The third aspect is the bargaining power of the customers, this determines how strong the
customers are. The power of the customers is very high and they have adequate bargaining
power. This is because they have a wide variety of options available at their disposal which
range from, news channels, newspapers, online sources and others.
The fourth aspect is the threat of substitutes . The threat of substitutes is extremely high
in the given industry as internet penetration has bought about various options for the different
users. Lastly, the degree of rivalry aspect is checked (Couldry and Hepp 2013). The degree of
rivalry in the given industry is also very high and there exists cut throat competition.

3DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
In modern marketing, it's essential that situation analysis aims to summarize an organizations
online marketplace and its own performance to help devise or refine a digital marketing strategy.
Challenges for Media companies
After analyzing the marketplace of the firm, it can be figured that the following
challenges are being faced by the media firms . The first challenge lies in getting enough clients
for the firm and retaining them (Picard 2014). There are a large number of customers, however
their needs are quite varied. Their varied needs may make it difficult for the different media and
Communications Company to capture the consumer market. Furthermore, clients are often fickle
minded which makes it extremely difficult for the firm, to retain the existing customer base.
The second challenge faced by the media and communications is the challenge of
attracting top talent. Talent plays an extremely crucial role in the organization and finding the
right talent is an extremely difficult task (Chaffey 2016).As the media industry works in direct
contact with the customers, it is essential for them to see to it that all their demands are met with.
Hence, the problem attracting of the right kind employees prevails.
The third and the most critical challenge as faced by the media and communications
company the management of client expectations (Vinerean et al., 2013). Client tends to form the
most important stakeholder in the business scenario and if a firm is unable to manage the client
base then it faces backslash and the good name of the organization also gets affected. The
changing media landscape has also posed as a huge challenge in front of the companies, as the
whole landscape of the Public Relations activities has changed considerably and this has lead to
a challenge for the traditional public relations firms.
Strategies over the last few years

4DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
The most important part of the essay will be discussed now which is the change in the
key strategies of the firm to gain competitive advantage (Armstrong et al., 2015). This analysis
will be divided into three different periods :
2008-2012
Strategy of networking relations in the domain.. Relationships often tend to form an
essential aspect of business in the media and communications sector. These relations have to be
maintained with various Public relations firms, advertising agencies, personalities and other
players to ensure that the firm is able to satisfy its clients and is able to communicate on behalf
of them. In the period of 2008-102, the use of the given method was very relevant as the firms
wanted to maintain a large data base of both clients and prospective partners to achieve success
(Stelzner 2014). Credibility played a key role in determining business networks and the company
had to prove to the partners and networking associates that it is capable of carrying out its job
successfully.
Use of technology , for instance the online medium. Technology had just been identified
as a potential medium to communicate the objectives of the different firm`s to its customers and
hence for this reason, the communication firms had been making efficient use of technology to
carry out its media strategy. This included various aspects like email marketing, website
marketing and other activities.
2012-2015
Monitoring the web based data. With further development in technology, web based
strategies increased considerably because monitoring the web became very convenient for the
firms. By using various web monitoring tools, the media and communications firms were able to

5DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
harness exactly what was required out of them and what kind of company`s advertisement the
customers preferred. Using these websites, the advertisement sand news articles about the
companies were uploaded which then made the client company more popular.
Increasing social awareness. As terrorism and other economic problems grow around the
work during the given time frame, social awareness became the need of the hour and the
communications and media company will required to do something which would have spread
social awareness among the customers and portray the good deeds that was being done by the
company (Turhan 2013). Through this aspect, various media and communications firm made use
of the social awareness techniques to make their client firs more popular. Just like Mc. Donald`s
formed a social awareness strategy to help the company to improve its image in the eyes of the
customers. With use of the given strategy the firm was able to overcome the negative reviews
that generally surface during global crises.
2015-2018
The era 2015-2018 witnessed a steep rise in the emergence of social media platforms as a
medium and strategy which could be captured by the communications and Media Company in
order to ensure the respective audience was captured.
Social media strategy application. Social media marketing and communications
comprised of the media company making use of various social content in order to ensure that the
firm has attained adequate publicity and becomes viral in the eyes of the customers. This
medium involves the use of various social media websites like that of Instagram, Facebook and
Twitter in order to convey the message of the company to the customers (Mulhern 2013).
Various stories and blogs are put up which help to gain success. This does not take place in the

6DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
blink of an eye and has to be planned successful. Various aspects like the kind of content to be
shared, Managers of the social media account, how to engage customers, objectives to be
achieved needs to be kept in mind so that the firm`s communication strategy is successful.
Using Data analytics strategy. Data analysis and analytics has become one of the latest
strategies which are generally used by the media and communications firms in order to gain the
attention of the target audience. In data analytics, the communications and media companies
make use of their previous year’s data in order to analyze the future demands and requirements
of the various customers. Data analytics helps the firm to manage it social media activities also
by giving them an accurate detail of how many views have they received, what kind of stories
they prefer, what is their most used product as per reviews and other relevant facts.
From the given it can be stated that not all strategies have been successful and there have
been certain strategies which failed miserably (Tuten and Solomon 2017).
If each strategy over the given years is taken it can be analyzed that the best strategies
were the ones that engaged maximum customer attention. These strategies were the recent use of
Data analytics and social media marketing. These two are closely interlinked with one another
and go a long way in helping a firm to analyze the desired target market and the kind of media
strategies that need to be applied for a given firm (Kambatla et al., 2014). Data analytics helped
the firms to measure the response they were gaining and also went a long way to help them with
their social media strategies.
On the other hand, the strategies which were not successful over the time were strategies
like harnessing technology in the wrong method. Just mere use of technology, would not help,

7DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
the firm has to utilize the right mediums and apply the technology in a manner such that the firm
achieves long term success in its operations.
In the following section, the examples of some international media and communications
will be given and their use of various strategies will be portrayed.
Walt Disney is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world with a
large international presence (The Walt Disney Company. ,2018). The company has a wide
variety of consumer products, studio entertainment facilities and Interactive media techniques
like gaming and marketing mobile game which helps the organization to promote its message
into the outside world.
The next big company in this domain is the Twenty First Century Fox Inc. focusing on
broadcasting (Foxnews.com , 2018). The broadcasting firm goes a long way in promoting their
client content on Television, Direct Broadcast and Filmed Television system
These companies apply various strategies to increase their consumer base. These
strategies include various strategies like social media marketing, use of data analytics, web based
advertising and live streaming to promote client content.
Recommendations
Although the various firms in the media industry have been making use of different
strategies and techniques to promote its product in the market, the following strategies can be
applied in order to ensure that the firms perform well. The first strategy is to maintain an
authentic relationship (Raghupathi and Raghupathi, 2014). The media and communication
companies need to ensure that they are able to maintain authentic relationships with the various

8DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
clients and public relationship alike. This is extremely important for the business to survive in
the long run.
The second recommendation states that the company needs to make use of data analytics
and create the persona for every buyer in the market place (Armstrong et al., 2015). These
personas can be created with the help of social media platforms and websites which would then
assist the firm in seeing to it that it is being able to successfully implement its operations based
on the consumer perception. It is important to provide relevant content to the customers because
if they are not provided with the relevant content then they would not get engaged in the idea or
the service which is being offered to them which would then result in making the organizational
goal unachievable.
The media companies need to focus on Quality engagement. Very often the media firms
tend to believe that engaging in the large number of public interactions would lead to a higher
response from the side of the customer, however this is not the case (Miller 2013). The general
public or the one which has been targeted needs to be engaged in a content which is of good
quality. If the richness of the message being portrayed is good, it would be beneficial for the firm
in the long run.
The firms also need to ensure that the content that they are providing must not be
offensive and the primary objective of providing entertainment to the client is fulfilled. This is
because , when the companies tend to bring up something offensive and against a particular caste
or a religion then the media company as well as the client company might get affected.
Therefore, from the above analysis undertaken on the key strategies used by the media
and communication companies in order to achieve competitive advantage revealed that as the

9DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
media landscapes have been changing considerably, it has become increasingly important for the
firms to ensure that they make use of new and modern strategies to see to it that there message
on behalf of their clients has the ability to reach to the customers in the most attractive manner
(Kaur 2016). The given essay has been divided into various sections, each section providing a
case for the development of the chosen topic. The essay began with a brief introduction on the
given topic which was followed by a critical analysis on the market place. The challenges as
posed by the company have been portrayed .
This was followed by the various strategies that the firms have been using over the past
10 years. Certain practical examples have also been provided followed by recommendations to
improve the same. It can be stated that be it any business whether media or communications or of
a different category, it is extremely important for a firm to ensure that it is constantly indulging
in the market research and also seeing to it that the firm possesses the ability to survive in the
domain for a long period of time.

10DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY
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