Managing Your Digital Universe – It’s Not Rocket Science, or Is It?

By Brad Frederick

Your digital presence is complex. Rocket science-complex. Okay, maybe not quite rocket science, but close. There are a lot of moving pieces when it comes to creating, maintaining, and growing your presence online, from marketing to website development to social media. Surprisingly, the U.S.’s journey to outer space and society’s transformation to digital communication (and, thus, the creation of the internet and today’s digital age as we know it) are similar in how they began. Believe it or not, they’re also similar in their complexities. Here’s how:

To Infinity and Beyond

Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. SpaceX has had many firsts, including, most recently, the first crewed Dragon 2 flight on May 30, 2020. SpaceX partnered with NASA for this most recent success.

Stepping back to when space travel was seriously considered, I was nine months old when John F. Kennedy implored America to reach for the stars on September 12, 1962 with these memorable words:

“We choose to go to the Moon…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Kennedy’s dream of landing on the moon was realized on July 20, 1969. This was a US government-funded effort that did not include the aid of other foreign partners or countries.

To launch a rocket takes a lot of coordination between people, processes, technologies, analytics, and monitoring, and these need to be perfectly synced for a successful launch, flight, and landing.

“The Internet will never be used for business.”

In the same year, 1969, that the US landed men on the moon, another interesting project was also being funded by the US government, and that research project was called ARPANET. This was the first wide-area network with distributed control, and it used TCP/IP, which allowed computers to communicate on a distributed network. ARPANET was the early origin of the Internet.

Fast forward to the early 1990’s when I was working for an IT company, EDS – by chance founded in 1962, supporting General Motors. The Internet was still in its infancy and was text-based at the time (Mosaic, later Netscape, did not come along until 1993, which sparked the Internet boom).

I was working in one of the most advanced technical divisions of EDS, and I pitched our Chief Technology Officer on the idea that our division should start providing services for the Internet. His reply: “Brad, this Internet thing is kind of cool and fun, but it will never be used for business.” Fortunately, he was wrong, and Media Genesis was founded in 1996.

Back then, the entirety of your digital presence consisted mostly of a very basic website, but that has changed dramatically over the past 25 years.

Managing your Digital Universe IS Rocket Science

Successfully managing your digital ecosystem is complex and takes a lot of expertise and coordination – similar to a rocket launch. A digital presence is the centerpiece of your organization. The world is becoming more connected digitally than it is physically.

The world’s digital ecosystem changes rapidly and fluidly. The days of Set it and Forget it are past. Your web presence is not a one-time project. It is a living, breathing thing. Being proactive and staying on the cutting edge of digital is essential to staying relevant and connected to your customers, but there is a lot that goes into it.

Just a few of the components that make up a typical digital universe include an overall marketing strategy/plan, a website, intranet, a customer portal, e-commerce, e-learning, SEO/SEM, social media channels, analytics, digital advertising, and asset repository.

There should be no surprise this isn’t a job for one person or even one team. Managing your digital requires a partnership and team effort. This means your internal team as well as outside partners you may leverage, which could include an ad agency, PR, web development, IT/security, hosting, or a digital marketing team.

What is crucial is that all aspects of your digital presence are seamlessly integrated, secure, being tracked/analyzed, and are high-functioning.

It Takes a Digital Village

So, where do you start with building your digital team? Internally, of course. You start building your base by utilizing the talents and expertise your internal team possesses. You know your business better than anyone else, so there will be certain functions you’ll want to maintain in-house. This could be writing, design, or you may have an IT team that can handle certain aspects of hosting, programming, and/or integration with your internal systems.

The next layer will include your current trusted partners. This could be a PR firm, ad agency, or maybe a company that manages your network/security.

Then you need to look at what areas you need to supplement, or areas you should be including but don’t have the time or expertise (i.e. regular analytics reviews and recommendations/adjustments).

Media Genesis has a Managed Services Plan that allows us to supplement your needs. We have expertise in all of the previously mentioned areas (other than launching rockets meant for space). We are excellent partners with your internal team and current vendors.

In this digital world, you need highly collaborative and flexible teams working together. Your team will have a lot of expertise in your particular industry, but that is just one industry. At Media Genesis, we work with hundreds of clients across a wide variety of different industries, so we’ve seen and experienced a lot. We work with start-ups to Fortune 10s and everything in between.

Our team is nimble and always looking for better options, so we can bring you best practices and innovative ideas that may not be happening in your industry right now. We can take tasks off your hands you don’t want to be doing, and we can work to educate, empower, and assist in growing the skills of your internal team for those tasks they want and need to be doing.

With the Media Genesis Managed Services Plan, your company can leverage our expertise across a number of disciplines as needed on a monthly basis to ensure that all aspects of your digital presence are being efficiently managed.

Don’t let the complexities of digital media today dissuade you from developing your place in it. Just like the U.S. space program, the advancements, creativity, and value of digital technology have been growing exponentially. And with the evolution of the digital world, it’s becoming more and more important that we all utilize available digital platforms for clear and targeted communication. To do this, you need a talented, dedicated team.

Elon Musk is just as determined to colonize Mars as John F. Kennedy was to land on the Moon. Musk stated, “Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.” Make sure the team you pull together for your digital needs has these same qualities. For more information about how Media Genesis can help you improve your digital, reach out to us by phone at (248) 687-7888 or by email at inquiry@mediaG.com.