Digital will become mainstream in India in 2017: Rohan Mehta

Rohan Mehta, CEO, Social Kinnect, writes about what has him most excited about Digital & Social Media in 2017. 

Typically, focus, attention and budgets towards any particular from of brand communication are driven by two things: User Behaviour and User Adoption. User behaviour online is on a big upswing, but user adoption is still skewed towards the urban population. In terms of overall internet penetration, we are still way behind our international counterparts and are as low as 30-35 per cent, which to further elaborate, only a fraction of this population has access to high-speed internet. 

Three things excite me a lot about 2017:  

- Democratisation of broadband/ high speed internet access (mainly through smartphones and GSM technology) 

- Increasing accessibility and affordability of smartphones to the common man 

- A shift towards consumption of entertainment through digital mediums  

To give the above an impetus, demonetisation has pushed more people on the internet and will continue to do so. 

These factors will drive mass adoption of digital and social platforms and increase their potential reach and impact.  

I increasingly find myself in conversations with top level executives and brand managers, where they would like digital mediums to be the centrepiece of their brand communication strategy...I can only imagine that number to increase through the year ahead. 2017 will be marked as the year where digital becomes mainstream in India.