Calculating The Digital Momentum

Momentum, in classical mechanics, is the product of the mass and the velocity of an object. It's a vector quantity, which means that it possesses a direction and a magnitude. It shows us the impact of an object.

So let's say that there's a car moving at 90 km per hour and another car that is exactly the same model yet that moves at 110 km per hour. Now the impact of the latter will be greater with respect to the first one as their mass is the same yet the second one has a higher speed. It'll take it more time and energy to get to that speed and more time and energy to get back to zero from there.

What can this mean in digital marketing?

Think of the mass as the content of the project. A project is like a gift box that you give to the CEO. What does the CEO see once he unwraps the box?

- Celebrity: The project might have a celebrity as its testimonial.
- Innovation: There might an innovative detail in the project, or the project itself might be a great invention. Think of all the augmented reality projects on social media networks when it was first introduced to the online users.
- Message: You might or might not want to give a message with your project.
- Story: Are you telling a particular story to your end customer?
- Inspiration: What's the inspiration behind this project? What triggered your immagination?
- Price Point: If your project's tied to a product, it might have a price tag. If it's tied to social responsibility projects, it might be a volunteer project.
- Etc.

So in the end, the content of the box depends on your project. It's the MASS. It's what makes up the whole thing.

What's VELOCITY then? It's the rate of change of the position of an object - and in our case, of a project. How do we launch our project to the public eye? Does it become viral? Do a lot of people talk about it? Does it trigger the WOM process? Is the feedback positive or negative?

We have to look at the promotion process to understand the velocity of a project. The velocity of a digital project might be effected by one or all of the following:

- PR Strategy: What's your PR strategy? Are you running any editorials? Is any magazine getting an exclusive on this project? Which countries are your top priority?
- Blogger Outreach: Are bloggers involved in this project? Which ones did you pick? What is their reach? Is their follower base in line with your target audience?
- Social Media Network Support: Are you backing your project up with a social media network support? How are you promoting it on FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, etc.?
- Offline Advertising: Billboards? Are we going to see some advertising on print magazines? Any spot on TV?
- Online Advertising: Will Youtube run a teaser on its homepage? Are you investing in FB ads? Which websites will be showing your banners?
- SEO: How good is your SEO?
- Etc.

The DIRECTION, on the other hand, can be seen as the objective of a project. Where is it going? What is its aim?

After we know the mass and the velocity of a project, we can calculate the expected digital impact. I'll be looking at some interesting cases in luxury and fashion segment to come up with practical recipes to create digital projects with big & positive impacts.