To say that the world is changing would be like saying that the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening; nothing new.

To say it is changing in unimaginable ways would be like saying that the sun has risen…from the south and will set in the north! That, is certainly new, very, very new!

Something similar is happening in the world of marketing and communication. What we took for granted has either disappeared or is slowly going that way and what we couldn’t imagine has started to appear in the horizon.

Market Presence a while back was meant for the biggies in the industry. You ought to have deep pockets and could have the biggest hoardings, signs and sounds, money could buy. Despite its size, what lacked was the response of the target audience and ways and means of modifying one’s marketing campaigns. All of these took months if not years from inception to finale.

And then came the disrupter, Digital media. Things happen here at the speed of light from inception of ideas to final delivery to gauging results to fine-tuning campaigns. Old world styled media offices with huge spaces, big desks, gargantuan staff and humongous ego got a boot – at the speed of light! A laptop which sits pretty on your table top is the only thing in the name of infrastructure. Sit anywhere on the planet, you still have access to the eye of the storm and can let loose a volley of creative arrows. No age , experience bar, simply creative minds!

What then differentiates you from the rest? Presence! And surprisingly a presence which cannot be said with any degree of confidence, to be stable. Today it may be ranked # 1 by the search engines (Soon Apps taking that place!); tomorrow it may disappear entirely from the face of the digital world! With nothing but uncertainty being the new certainty, one has to be, by force of circumstances, creative, fast and utterly responsive.

Presence (and by extension, response) in the world of digital marketing is brought about in various ways including an extremely responsive website, social media, personalized mobile phone applications such as WhatsApp, google chat etc, flyers and the likes. These by no means are the only means. The digital space is such that every day some or the other new technology comes along which guarantees eyeballs with lesser constraints than before and a far greater reach.

The next rather obvious question could be: How does one take advantage of these mediums? It may sound and seem paradoxical but a constant presence in the digital-world is the only way to have a presence! More the presence, more the chances of survival and hence more likely the presence. Easier said than done, it calls for constantly scanning the digital horizon for new spaces to fit in and constantly re-inventing older ideas.

As regards presence, one thing that most search engines love is constant meaningful & creative content. This can be done by constantly updating websites, including a blog section which is very rich and recent in content besides being a regular on social media sites. Writing meaningful, positive stuff is one way of guarantying a regular presence.

Whether you are in Business or Professional, it’s must for everybody. There is nothing like optional. Be it a movie or for that matter even fate of most Elections is getting decided based on the digital strategy they use!

Despite technology, the best chance of survival in the Digital age is to be present online all the while. Here too the old saying goes, out of sight, out of mind, more so in the age of humongous competition!