With the wide range of technological tools available, consumers now often use numerous platforms simultaneously to communicate with one another and consume information. A person may chat on his iPhone, play a game on his tablet, and watch a YouTube video all at the same time. This tendency to multi-task has resulted consumers to demand companies to create digestible content so that they can differently content easily and quickly. Consumers today all want easy-to-read content so that they can read it while they’re busing, relaxing at a coffee shop, or just browsing at home. To adapt to this change, marketers should create short and digestible content. One way to do so, as suggested by Lance Saunders of DDB Canada, is by using social apps such as Vine that allow brands totell their stories easily in 6 seconds. Although it’s short, it’s the only way for companies to express their messages within the audience’s attention span.

Mike Krafcyzk, Partner at St. Bernadine, believes that it’s important to take care of your customers because if you don’t, negative comments about your company can diverge rapidly and uncontrollably. Technology has not only allowed consumers to interact with brands, but has also enabled consumers to interact with one another. With the advent of communication channels such as Facebook and Twitter, consumers can now interact with other consumers across the globe. Moreover, the velocity in which messages can travel between consumers is lightning-quick. A bad PR news about a company in Vancouver can be transmitted to consumers in China within hours. This will damage a company’s reputation profoundly as well as its short-term revenue stream.

Neil McPhedran of Grey Vancouver believes companies should stop doing #selfie marketing and concentrate instead on developing content that really matters to consumers. Consumers are no longer interested in consuming content that simply brags about a company’s recent establishments or successes. They want content that solves their problems. The only way for a brand to capture its audience’s attention is by producing articles, visuals, or videos that resonate with their consumers’ needs. If a company is unable to deliver consumer-oriented content, it’ll induce its readers to exit their website. 

 Chris Staples of Rethink thinks companies will stop paying for media in the next 3 years and leverage earned media instead. Earned media is generally defined as publicity that’s gained organically. For example, a company that has increased its exposure through organic social media growth and complimentary editorial coverage has gained publicity through earned media. By leveraging earned media, companies can use its advertising expense to create content that’s geared towards its target audience. This will allow businesses to induce their current social media communities to share the content with their peers and help them reach consumer markets that likely suit their desired demographic, psychographic, and geographic.