New Age Media!

The way marketers and advertising companies reach out to their prospective clients/customers has evolved over the years. The tools that were used earlier have now transformed, internet is the new marketing place and social networking sites are havens for marketers. Politicians and celebrities are also taking advantage of these new media tools. So, what are these new age media tools?

In broader terms the “new age media” includes digital media (mobile phones) and electronic media (social networking websites, online-tv). These new age mediums are faster than the traditional ones, and research has proven that they have a far greater impact on the audience. This might help you understand how greater the impact is, Honda of America, one of the leading automotive company in the United States was also intrigued to use this newly established channel to advertise. Using Facebook, Honda did a teaser marketing on their launch of new line of car called Accord Crosstour. At zero cost, Honda created a Facebook product page and reached out to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Facebook users.

It comes as no surprise when India’s top movie stars like Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Abhishek Bachchan twitter to market their movies. Bollywood’s highest earning movie, 3 Idiots was also released on Youtube just three months after its Global release. Amir Khan interacted with fans in a QnA session on Facebook.

Indian Congress also embraced this new age media by creating fan pages for Rahul Gandhi and the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh.  Shashi Tharoor has over 600,000 followers on twitter and his ‘human’ tweets make sure, he is in the news at all times.

From this side of the border former President Pervaiz Musharaf has also made an account on Facebook. In his first video to his fans he said that “I have signed up to connect with the youth of my country”.  President Musharraf’s page, which was created in October 2009, already has more than 50,000 fans.  The former ruler, also posted a video in which he talked about why he chose Facebook to interact with youth, which can be also be seen on the page.

Media isn’t limited to neatly boxed rectangles called newspapers, TV or magazines anymore. People now connect to one another through websites, blogs which are also accessible on mobile phones through GPRS and Edge. If you want to be part of the Social Networks marketing process, than you have to be part of the conversations on the new age media, that’s when real marketing takes place.