Decoding Digital Culture

July 17, 2017

What is Digital? Digital is not about tools and platforms. It is about culture. How? There are over 50,000 non-branded beauty vloggers online on YouTube. There are over 100 hours of beauty content uploaded each day. Beauty videos got over a billion views per month. A certain Bethany Mota has over 5 million subscribers.

Whereas L’oreal Paris USA has just 100,000 subscribers on YouTube!

The message is loud and clear. If we drive our Digital initiatives as a search, and build tools and platforms, then we are done for. Brands and your digital initiative and your business needs to connect with consumers.

Digital is a culture change. Social is an approach and not a platform.

One-to-one personalization is key. Listen to your customers, and stop pushing messages to them. Don’t crash their party!

Build trust with your audience. Build long-term relationships. People buy products not to own them, but to be a part of the story.

Stop saying things at people, but do things with and for people. That is digital strategy right there.

WHAT IS DIGITAL CULTURE?

It believes in an interconnected and networked world and not one that is hierarchical. Why you can’t control how people should react, comment, post online? And you should let go.

Leave it to chance and not plan everything, crossing the “Ts” and dotting the “Is”. Surprises are fun, experimentation is great. Visibility to what comes next is boring.

Re-purpose and not just keep creating something new. Don’t keep starting from scratch, try to reuse instead. Agility and collaboration over systems, documentation and contracting!

If it works it is good, no need for sweating it over perfection.

Open source – yes! Be an open book yourself. Don’t push it on privacy.

Avoid holding onto information. Start sharing. Be Transparent.

Don’t wait for spoon feeding and known solutions. Contribute and be part of solution. Innovate.

Qualifications and traditional classroom training is passé. Be self-trained. Be hands-on. Learn on the go.

Informal communication! First Name!

Author, Review and Publish is old-school. Publish, Receive Feedback (Likes/Comments) is way to go.

Photos are fun, long texts- huh!

STORIES IN DIGITAL

Make it interactive. For example on-boarding a new joiner into the organization need not be about Knowledge and Skill Training. But the same outcome maybe achieved by using gamification. Create a game for new joiners. And by crossing each level, they progress in their training.
Increase sales in sports stadium. By creating an application where the audience can bet on minimum score a batsman would make in the game of cricket. And for every right answer they get e-coupons for food counter.
Have a live show on TV, where online viewers can decide to engage. Example: audience can vote for it to rain, in the next scene of the show.
Engage with people who check-in to your restaurant or hotel or theater. Immediately react to their posts.
Make digital real. To launch the new season of House of Cards, Netflix decided to turn their fictional president, Frank Underwood, into a real presidential candidate. They ran a presidential campaign. Created a website for the campaign, t-shirts, pins etc.
Digital culture is social. Swedish Tourism has published a number, where as a traveler you may call. And you will be connected with a random, who has volunteered, Swede. In fact some lucky travelers can also speak with the Prime Minister.

DIGITAL CULTURE IN PHOTOS

THROUGH THE GENERATIONS

Greatest generation (Born 1901-1924)

Silent generation (Born 1924- 1945)

Baby Boomers (Born 1946-1964)

Generation X (Born 1965-1976)

Millenials / Gen Y (Born 1977- 1995)

iGen/ Generation Z (Born 1996 onwards)

MEET THE iGEN

Hello! I am happy to connect with you. I am an isolated socialite. But don’t get me wrong, I am not a loner, I believe in human connections. I am a global citizen. But I am grounded in my surroundings. I love the local lanes and by-lanes. The road less traveled.

I look at my phone at least 5 times every hour. We don’t like to raise our voice and our heads. Always looking down at our phones. Why?

Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO). My friends maybe having a great time and I don’t know. So I browse online, always, to know what is going on.

Fear of Being Offline: I need to be online, my mobile needs to be connected to the network. I cannot be out of reach.

Where I work?