THE digital age is upon us, but you wouldn’t always know it from the way some brands market themselves.

Consumers are comfortable with video content and social media, but many marketeers have yet to integrate the two fully and are thereby missing a trick.

As a result, brands are missing out on a huge opportunity to reach a marketplace of willing buyers and significantly add to revenue screens.

Think back five or ten years and YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were niche products or didn’t exist at all.

Now they are firmly fixed in popular culture.

It is now standard for brands to have Twitter and Facebook links on their websites, and occasionally some video content, but it is often disparate and unconnected.

For any marketing to have real impact, a co-ordinated approach is required.

At this month’s London Fashion Week, Burberry streamed its catwalk show live on the internet and via big screens at Piccadilly Circus.

In a unique move, they also made the clothes on the catwalk available to order at the same time online, giving shoppers the chance to buy before the clothes have made it to the shops.

There is a synergy between good video content and social media – if you see a good video, you will share it with friends, family and colleagues via Facebook and Twitter.

Traditionally, video content and social media would be managed separately but, as the Burberry example shows, it makes commercial sense to combine the two.

And while most marketing departments can only dream of the budgets allocated to an international fashion launch, the same thinking can be applied on a smaller scale.

Local boutiques and delis could embed fashion shows and cooking demonstrations on their social media profiles, for example.

This kind of innovation at the grassroots level will ensure businesses of all sizes can make the most of what social media has to offer and reap the benefits.