What purpose does a digital footprint have? The digital footprint is collected through the medium of the famous cookies and generally is used to create client profiles to offer information to those for whom it is of interest and in alignment with their likes and preferences.
The data can be public or private. The former, for example, can be obtained every time that a review of a hotel or restaurant is left on public profiles on TripAdvisor or Google My Business. The private is when a website is entered, and to access a certain type of information, registration is requested or allowed with an email address.
For many years, businesses like Google and Facebook have been gathering data and they “sell” it to advertisers to generate publicity. When you open a Gmail account or Facebook profile, we start to share information and from here onwards every interaction with these platforms will add up.
The profiles permit the exchange of value with the clients, promote a client-centered service attitude for everyone within an organization and there is a deep understanding that digital permits data collection to better understand the needs of and thereby our clients.
How does it work?
To take advantage of an effective form of a digital footprint, it is necessary to use a methodology that uses data like a base which afterwards is converted into information, subsequently into understanding and later evolves into wisdom.
A very practiced example is at Netflix where a lot of time is spent gathering data on user preferences, all this data later is organized and crossed to subsequently generate an algorithm that understands and consumes all this information and that allows us to know the users’ preferences and this wisdom today is translated in the percentage that we see in the screen that says that the movie or series is aligned with my likes.
What happens if this does not occur? Probably as users we feel bored with so much information that we do not know what to see or choose.
Risks of the digital footprint
Our minds prefer the simple things and that they are personalized, the digital footprint therefore allows us to understand our clients to bring them information which is relevant to them…Imagine if we could predict all the advertisements that exist in digital! It would be crazy.
In today’s world, digitalized, post-covid, we need to understand the role of marketing is not to create advertisements, it is to facilitate the exchange of value with the clients, it is to promote a client-centered service attitude for everyone in the organization and that there is a deep understanding that digital permits data collection to better understand the needs of and thereby our clients.
Recommendations
Few users realize the value of their digital fingerprints, few businesses take an active position in response to the collection of their clients’ data. Everyone’s digital fingerprints, in the end, are monetized by people, businesses, robots and artificial intelligence. They are part of a complete economic system which is growing.
The recommendation for an internet user is to take care which data you share and with whom. Make sure, as far as possible, not to click everything or accept all terms and conditions. It is necessary to be more protective of the data that we are leaving for every website.
As a user it is possible to block the cookies, control the data that is shared and configure the privacy of social media accounts. Remember in digital, once the data is captured it is very difficult to remove.
The recommendation for businesses is that they take care of their data and that of their clients, seek to protect and integrate all the data from client interaction, break information silos between departments to bring better and more responsible attention to clients.
