I read an interview this morning where the subject of the interview was a supposed “digital” guy. But the entire interview was about advertising. This tells me we still have a long way to go in making digital mainstream, when firms that are purely about pushing online ads get credibility as digital agencies.

True digital marketing is more than Facebook or Twitter. Online ads or videos. Digital is about a shift in marketing communications from a one-way outbound model to a two-way inbound model. It’s no longer about just serving ads, although a lot of people want to tell you that simply because that’s where they make money.

There’s at least six main pillars of “digital”:

  1. Website
  2. Email
  3. Social Media
  4. Online Advertising
  5. Mobile
  6. Video

A true digital campaign incorporates all of these elements and does so in an authentic way.

So the next time you read an article where someone gets the opportunity to share their predictions of where “digital” is going and all they talk about is advertising, keep looking.