Digital is increasingly ‘a must’. Even if it’s considered an add-on to the televised event and mainly employed by marketing, its role and importance is growing exponentially. However, there is still apprehension when it comes to going online. Much of it is still under a shroud of buzzwords and the money model is not clear either.  Considering the uncertainty of it all, it’s also expensive.

But it doesn’t have to be.  By far, the biggest item in any digital project is the development of the platform itself. Be it an app or a website, it takes designers, programmers, UI experts and promotion money to make it happen. It also takes time, a problem worsened by the habit of exploring digital in a late stage of production.

The biggest item in any digital project is the development of the platform itself.

You can save a lot of time and money by simply using existing platforms, instead of building them from scratch for each campaign. There are many platforms that come with developed software, constantly update their API and some even come with their own promotion.  Above all, they want to be used.

Here are some examples of cross media deployed on existing platforms: X Factor US used Twitter voting, Masterchef created a visual cookbook on Instagram, Vine was used to create a trailer for the movie Jobs, New Girl used Interlude to create an interactive promotion clip and Psych used the Theatrics platform to create a transmedia game to engage fans.

Furthermore, TV by the People used Facebook to create the first ever crowd-sourced format, I Can Do That is using Moolta to get audiences to follow the contestants, Fusic was used for the promotion of an Israeli primetime singing show and CBC used the Facebook API to bring viewers into the studio of Battle of the Blades.

Digital is varied enough to provide simple, cost-effective answers.

It’s true that there are some goals you can only achieve by building a new platform, but the take-away from this article is that digital doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to have a huge production with complicated processes. Digital is varied enough to provide simple, cost-effective answers.  You don’t need to create something new in order to be innovative.

The other way to save money on digital is to design it to be profitable, but that is a matter for a whole new article…

Daniel Ravner is Founder and CEO of Practical Innovation – http://www.practicalinnovation.tv/