There is a lot of value to be had if you enter an award in online digital media. You can potentially receive a significant amount of recognition, publicity and automatic consumer trust. This can be very difficult to achieve on your own considering the vast amount of websites, apps and games that flood the Internet. This is why people need a trusted source to filter through all of the duplicate content to help them find those things that really add value. This is the goal of the Digital Media Awards, which aims to reward those with recognition who deserve it in the digital world.
Of course, the Digital Media Awards is great for consumers because it serves as a filter to reduce information overload. However, there are many benefits of entering an award from the perspective of the mobile app or digital business creator.

Local Recognition
One of the primary benefits of participating in and then receiving an award is the immediate recognition your company and product receive for a job well done. If you reside in the UK, there are few ways to do that better than with a local award competition such as the Digital Media Awards.
As people have a tendency to trust or want to give their money to local businesses or people, there is no denying that there is an advantage in being more well-known locally, otherwise, this would not be an effective marketing tactic. Being highly recognized at the Digital Media Awards will put you well on your way to gaining a significant amount of local recognition and trust.

Professional Recognition
Whilst local recognition is important, professional recognition is equally as important. When you enter an award like Digital Media Awards, it shows that you are serious about what you do. It also shows that you believe you are creating a product that deserves recognition above the rest. This says a lot about your company and how professional you are.
Additionally, when you receive an award of excellence at the Digital Media Awards, you are automatically granted the right to display the DMA logo on your website. You also give DMA the right to post information about your product or website on their site as well. Having your product or website featured on a high-ranking popular website does wonders for generating new interest in what your company is doing.
This is like being able to display your seal of approval. It immediately states that you are relevant, good at what you do, trustworthy and worth talking about. This is one the best types of online ‘referrals’ you could ever receive.
When you enter an award like the DMA’s, even if your company does not receive an award of excellence, you better yourself through learning about the competition that did. It is an outstanding opportunity for growth and development for companies. If your company is not at the level you would like, this is especially why you should enter an award. The amount of growth your company will experience will have you coming back each year to stay ahead of the curve.

Terms, Conditions and Rules

1. In submitting your application you agree to the following rules and terms.
2. The competition is only open to the UK.
3. The DMA is created, run and administered by Bing Digital Ltd.
4. The fee for all applications is £120 (incl. VAT), and must be returned by cheque, made payable to “Bing Digital Ltd” with the application form.
5. The fee and application must be sent per category entered.
6. The judges decisions are final and may not be appealed or changed.
7. Any website, game or application containing sexism, racism, religious prejudice, pornography, profanity, degradation of adults , children or animals, sell products or services that are illegal in the UK, or use any unoriginal content may not enter.
8. In submitting your work to DMA, you allow us to showcase your work using screenshots on our website and link both to your work, and your website.
9. The same site can be entered, nominated and even win more than one category.
10. All winners and runners up will be notified. Unfortunately due to the volumes of entries, we cannot inform those who did not win.
11. Winners will receive their award icon to use in print and on the web.
12. Only winners of the DMA have permission to show the DMA logo which must be linked back to the DMA website.
13. Bing Digital Ltd are forbidden to enter any of their clients into the DMA for any conflicts of interest.

Digital media is everywhere nowadays with the Internet continuing to expand and more content being produced everyday. Even traditional media outlets such as newspapers and radio are adapting to the digital scene, and there appears to be no sign that trends will stop changing. What’s popular one day can be almost non-existent the next. With that said, let’s look at the 5 of the trends for the upcoming year.

The world of mobile
56% of adults in America now have a smartphone. This number has increased over 20% from early 2012. As well as this, 18% of all E-commerce sales in the UK were sales of mobile phones and tablets. In the next few months we know that mobile traffic will overtake desktop traffic. Winning on the mobile front has never been more important and it is getting more important each day as sales of mobile devices increase in the developing countries such as Africa, India and the rest of Asia.

Video
In 2014 we can expect to see video marketing rise quickly. YouTube has firmly established itself as a key media platform for the world, especially for younger media consumers. Video is also now a key component of any company’s sales pages and about pages.

Wearable technology
The market or “wearables” will see a sharp rise this year. This involves wristbands, smartglasses, Google Glass, and Samsung Galaxy Gear. There are a large number of start-ups in this area at the moment. Pavlok is one of these start-ups- a wristband that administers a small electric shock or a less severe punishment (such as contacting a friend on your behalf) if you do not perform the task you were supposed to that day. Expect to see much more of wearable technology.

Content is Sacred
We all know that content is key. This is an existing trend but one which is worth repeating. The number of web pages is staggering and has only gotten higher in the past year. As Google continues to go through its iteration cycle, you will be able to capitalize on not just improving your content, but making it compatible across all platforms. The Hummingbird update show how serious Google are about this. Titles such as content manager could become obsolete. Content will go from key, to sacred.

Geo-targeted content
We know that mobile traffic will increase, but another thing to remember about that is that companies will have more data about users. With wearable technology coming into existence, the number of data is going to increase exponentially.  This could lead to geo-targeted content giving us only the very latest, up-to-the-minute news, but news from where exactly the user is.

It’s impossible to predict the trends for digital media for any longer than a year. The pace of development means that in six months time, something new could come along- something that no one’s even thought of yet- and take all of us by storm. This is precisely what makes this area so exciting!