Top 5 Digital Skills To Learn In 2018

This is the digital age of innovation, automation, and digitization. Ever since the millennium began, we have seen the world move at a fast pace, and Computer Age came into being, we have seen tremendous growth in digital skills. There was a time, when India was still embracing the era of computers. In that period, people paid to undertake short term courses to learn basics like MS-DOS and Microsoft Office even. Just the foundation level learning of Computers was looked up with great reverence.

In today’s day and time though, MS Office is seen as alphabets. It is assumed that everyone knows it and can make use of it. The world has moved on greatly. Now the focus has moved to various other skills like Analytics, Content, Design, Search Engine Optimization and HTML.

At the base of everything digital, is Analytics. There is a whole lot of customization possible. And with that all data can be analyzed as per the various parameters one wants. The various platforms across social media run based on analytics. Analysts collect data through portals, and create dashboards.

Content is what makes up all the conversation between any product or service and the end user/ consumer. Content needs to be crafted and created and at times reproduced, in order to reach out to the right audience at the right time and right place. This is one fast growing skill in the digital age. Content writing in itself is a separate branch which again opens newer branches under its huge umbrella.

The next skill is Design. There was a time, when Designing was seen as a niche skill. There were separate courses that offered Design as a curricular subject, under Computers. However, with passage of time, Design has slowly merged with content itself. From audios, videos and images to infographics and memes, there seems to be an endless opportunity and scope for growth and personal skill progress. The blurred lines between content and design mean that a whole lot of people can put their skills to use in either of the fields. 2018 is bound to see more progress and growth with this skill set.

No matter how informative and apt the content and design, if the audience is not aware of where to find what they are looking for, it makes little sense for any data to exist on the world wide web. This is where the role of next skill comes in. Search Engine Optimization. This, in common man’s language means, to make available the data when searched in a certain way in google, bing or yahoo. The more the data is search-friendly, the farther its reach.

Lastly, HTML skills would make the cut for 5 most important digital skills. Knowing how to build and operate a website end to end is another level of expertise. But to manage or edit an existing website or webpage and being able to insert links, images, etc. one needs these skills.

These are the 5 skills that play a great role in the digital world.