Introduction
I like to split ‘marketing’ into five main (overlapping concepts / areas of focus). Firstly, the idea that marketing takes place wherever a customer comes into contact with a brand (whether it be customer service, the look of the parcel that arrives in the post, the look of the front door of the company, the quality of the product / service, the advertising, and so on). I think this idea is pretty much universal to marketing in any age or place. Secondly, that marekting involves strategy (and goals) and creativity (again, universal in any age / place). Thirdly, that marketing has to be rooted in research, scrutinized by testing. Fourthly: brand story. And, fifthly, marketing communications. You, could, also add branding to the list, but to me, branding is just too integral to all these four concepts / areas of focus to be listed on its own.

Changes in consumer behaviour / developments in digital media
Competition for consumer attention is much greater now than it has ever been. People’s home / work lives are busier. People have generally more options to choose from in regards to leisure and media. And there are more brands, products and services, and, inevitably, more marketing / branding out there, in general, than there has ever been. Add to this the fact (for a whole bunch of reasons: too many to go into here) that consumers are now more interested, in general, in spending their money on some kind of experience than just a mere product or service ( with exceptions, of course,  i.e utility products and services, to one degree or another, as well as other types of products and services). Before, marketeers could get away, to a certain degree, with ‘telling’ people about their brands (including benefits / values), now they have to work harder at building up a rapport with audiences and giving more freedom to the audience for them to choose whether they want to engage with the brand in some way.
The emergence of digital media, and in particular, the internet has been the second major area impacting on the development of attitudes to and approaches in marketing. Firstly, digital media increase the quantity of channels available for marketeers to communicate to audiences but it, also, increases the methods in which marketeers can communicate to audiences. This results in digital media increasing the competition for consumer attention as well as increasing the complexity of how to communicate to audiences but, at the same time, digital media, also, offers a valuable opportunity for marketeers to communicate to audiences in new and interesting (and effective) ways.
All of this means that marketeers now have to be more clever in how they approach marketing including listening to consumers more / understanding consumers better, attempting to have a more realistic two-way conversation than before, being more imaginative and creative, more flexible in approach, and so on.

Advertising, Marketing, Media & PR as one
All of these changes and developments have meant that advertising, marketing (and branding), media, PR have all merged more into each other – all working, together (to one degree or another, depending on the company / job / brand / task) to offer an overall holistic approach.

Digital Marketing
Big subject .. Some key thoughts / points. 
A digital marketing strategy, however basic, is required in general (perhaps as a subset of an overall marketing, or marketing communications, strategy).
Key areas include: Social marketing (blogging, social networking on social network sites i.e Facebook, LinkedIn and so on, micro blogging i.e Twitter), as a way of listening to consumers, communicating to consumers, and so on. Blogging can, also, be used for PR, search marketing, research, and so on. Blogging and content writing on sites in general requires greater skills in copywriting as well as expertise in a particular subject (leading to the ideal of ‘content is king.’) Other areas include: viral marketing, banner advertising, email marketing, search marketing, SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing.  Websites in general – their look, feel and usability – all contribute to the consumer experience of that brand.

Humanising brands
One of the key ideas behind social media is to humanize brands. If businesses want their customers to interact with their brands then those customers must communicate with people (you can’t interact with just a product or a service) in some shape or form.
Another more general idea behind ‘humanising brands’ is that businesses should create brands with people in mind (not just consumers of products / services). Brands that seem perfect and authoritative (especially with entertainment brands – things are different, to a degree, with more utilitarian / functional brands) can put people off, simply because ordinary people aren’t perfect (plus can anything really be ‘perfect’ including the claim of a brand to be ‘perfect’.). Of course companies want to create excellent products and services . And they should. But it’s a case of presenting the product or service in a way that doesn’t distance the audience.

Consumer generated content and customer-made advertising and branding
Humaniszing brands is, also, about inviting consumer generated content and customer-made advertising and branding. The main focus for consumer-generated content is consumer generated content on the interneti.e blogs, wikis, product reviews, online video, and so on. But consumers are, also, playing a role in the development  of the advertising, and indeed in the development, of brands themselves. Dilemma to think about here: on the one hand (positive) brands should, surely, be rooted in what consumers want, and on the other (negative) direct consumer input could be at variance with the overall or long-term values of a brand).

Research and testing in the digital environment
Certainly social media had become an important tool for finding out what customers think (or, perhaps, we should say ‘listening’). Effective testing, on the other hand, still remains a real challenge for thinkers and innovatores, in general, in the digital environment.

Brand story
Having a brand story is as crucial as ever. The internet  (and in particular social networking, blogs, and more) is proving an interesting way of communicating (and creating) brand stories.

Word of mouth
At the end of the day, the ultimate goal of branding is to get consumers to think and talk about your brand for free. In 2008 an interesting debate developed over the theory of word of mouth and in particular to Duncan’s Watt’s (of Yahoo) take on Malcolm Gladwell’s infamous The Tipping Point (where a core group of influencers inspire ideas, trends and fashions). Watt’s take is more on what / where / when than who. This isn’t really specific to 2008 (perhaps it is; perhaps you have your own views on this). This important debate just happened to occur in 2008. But it certainly seems like a worthwhile subject to think about.

Marketing Communications
But for me the most important turn that ‘marketing’ has made, in recent years, is in the area of communications. For some people, perhaps, marketing, more-a-less equals communications. Of course, marketing has always been about communications but now the emphasis is on how to do it better: how to understand audiences better and how to use the various communicatios tools, at the disposal of marketeers, better.

Conclusion
There is no doubt that ‘marketing’ is still in the midst of an important change. Marketeers are still trying to get grips with all the possible ways of using the internet to communicate brands to customers. As soon as they figure one thing out, then something else appears that has to be figured out in turn. And then there are all the developments that are taking place in other areas of digital media, as well, in particular mobile technology. Keeping up to-date with the latest digital technologies and methodologies as well as learning from the successes of others with digital media is crucial, aiming to create people-friendly brands, as well as being flexible, imaginative, holistic – and above all – entrepreneurial in approach.

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