The COVID-19 epidemic is the most recent cause to change many businesses’ marketing perceptions, prompting them to turn to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) as solutions that allow customers to interact with a product or service safely and enjoyably.
At first, adoption of this was challenging in any case because shoppers could go to a brand’s physical store and see the product’s catalog in person. That was true until the epidemic occurred, and its restrictions prevented people from visiting stores and socializing with workers and other customers.
These aspects welcomed AR and VR technology into customers’ lives, providing them with an engaging one-of-a-kind online experience.
So, what exactly are augmented and virtual reality, and how can they alter the social media experience? Keep reading to discover!
What is VR (Virtual Reality) and How is it Impacting Video Marketing?
Nowadays, video is the most used medium for marketing. More and more people turn on their televisions and computers to view videos rather than merely reading or staring at a static picture. They’ve discovered that videos are a considerably more engaging medium for capturing and maintaining their interest.
That’s typical video marketing. In addition, there’s virtual reality video marketing, which has the ability to boost brand visibility and engagement to a degree you’ve never imagined.
The use of computer technology to create a simulated world is known as virtual reality (VR). Unlike traditional user interfaces, virtual reality immerses the user in an experience. Instead of looking at a screen, users are engaged in and interact with 3D environments. The computer is converted into a gatekeeper to this artificial world by replicating as many senses as possible, including vision, hearing, touch, and even smell.
You might also wonder if there are different forms of virtual reality. There are, indeed!
Types of Virtual Reality
There are three main types of virtual reality simulations utilized today:
Non-Immersive VR
Non-immersive virtual experiences are sometimes neglected as a virtual reality category, owing to their widespread use in everyday life, although a typical video game is appropriately considered a non-immersive VR experience. It allows you to engage with a virtual environment, typically via a computer (or video game console, display, and input devices, such as keyboards, mouse, and controllers), in which you can control some characters or activities inside the experience. What distinguishes it from fully-immersive VR is that the environment does not directly interact with you.
Computer games, such as Dota or Sims, are wonderful examples of non-immersive virtual reality. You can influence parts of your character, which will affect the game’s virtual surroundings. You are technically engaging with a virtual world, but not directly. That is something your character in the game does.
Semi-Immersive VR
Semi-immersive virtual experiences immerse people in a virtual world. When users focus on the digital picture, they will still get the impression that they are in a separate world, but they will also be connected to their physical environment.
Semi-immersive technology, often known as vertical reality depth, gives realism through 3D images. The more detailed the images are, the more immersive the experience for the user is. A virtual tour, for example, is a semi-immersive virtual technology that many businesses are adopting so that their clients may stroll about the place without physically being there. It is also utilized for instructional or teaching reasons, with HR displays, projectors, and simulators partially replicating the design of real-world machinery.
It’s vital to remember that semi-immersive VR simulations nevertheless give people the impression that they’re in another reality. In this type, physical surroundings are instead constructed to augment VR.
Fully-Immersive VR
Virtual reality that is fully immersed offers a realistic experience, giving you the impression that you are physically there in the virtual world and that the events taking place are happening to you.
The user will require the appropriate head-mounted displays, headphones, gloves, and body detectors to enjoy and engage with fully immersive virtual reality. The computer uses the data from these sensors, and the virtual environment reacts in real-time to offer users a realistic virtual experience.
Users get the most authentic experience possible with fully immersive simulations, including both sight and sound. The VR headsets provide high-resolution information with a broad range of vision.
In VR arcades or even at home, this sort of VR is often utilized for gaming and other forms of entertainment.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality: What is the Difference?
Extended reality encompasses both AR and VR, yet each provides a unique experience. Shoppers may preview items in an enhanced version of a real-world location, such as IKEA, using AR in eCommerce. The company has already released a trial version of their Studio app, allowing iPhone users to decorate whole rooms using their phones’ sensors.
Fashion and beauty brands, such as Nike, Adidas, Warby Parker, L’Oréal, and Sephora, have also jumped on board, developing AR experiences that allow customers to digitally try on shoes, glasses, makeup, and clothing, using their smartphones.
Augmented Reality (AR) is a sort of virtual reality that allows users to see the actual environment through a phone screen and make virtual modifications to it. The mobile gaming application Pokémon Go is an excellent example that can help you better grasp augmented reality.
The computer in AR technology utilizes sensors and algorithms to detect the location and orientation of the camera, then renders 3D visuals as they would look from the camera’s viewpoint, placing the computer-generated visuals over the user’s real-world environment.
Unlike AR, where a real camera is placed within a physical area, with Virtual Reality, the user’s eyes are set within a simulated reality utilizing VR glasses. In other words, if the user moves his head, the images adjust correspondingly. VR technology produces a believable, interactive environment for the viewer rather than mixing virtual elements and a real scene.
To explain it even simpler, the differences between VR and AR boil down to the gear required and the experience itself: AR employs a real-world context, whereas VR uses an entirely virtual environment. While VR requires a headset, AR can be accessed with a smartphone device. While VR enriches a fictitious reality, AR enhances virtual and actual worlds.
The Future of VR Technology in Social Media Experience
We can all agree that social media is a technical phenomenon that changes every year, if not every few months. Because of the way it combines so many different technologies, it’s a foregone conclusion that it will evolve into an entirely new communication format sooner or later. And Virtual Reality is simply another example of this, given that it is the founder of the world’s largest social network that sees such integration as the way of the future.
Consider this: virtual reality is a fantastic setting for displaying social network interface components in a way that has never been seen before. Even today, we can see how global it is growing due to the ongoing development and improvement of the resource’s user experience and design and films with full immersion.
The panoramic photographs, virtual galleries, and communication places will contribute to a larger and better virtual reality. Imagine donning a helmet and accessing virtual rooms where you can interact with friends or media centers where you can read the news. You won’t even need to open or pin tabs because everything will be there – in front of you, accessible and controllable with a simple turn of your head. Imagine all of it being applied to virtual social media networks – isn’t it impressive?
Facebook frequently shows a glimpse of the future of virtual reality and stresses how significant a social networking potential this would be. Virtually communicate with your friends and colleagues via an “avatar” profile, similar to the Sims characters.
It is not a secret to anybody how much Facebook and Google believe that VR is the future of content consumption. And Facebook’s new Meta proves it. Since its inception in 2004, the platform has been the subject of much debate. After more than 17 years, creator Mark Zuckerberg has announced changes, including a new name, and vowed to build a “new internet.”. The platform’s new moniker, “Meta”, which was inspired by the Greek term “beyond”, reveals the creator’s plans to establish a next-generation “metaverse” internet. Facebook is already working on innovative new technologies to enable individuals to connect and explore the metaverse.
There would almost certainly be a wide range of positive and negative reactions to this, but it is undeniable that virtual reality opens up a vast array of new chances and possibilities for brands, advertising, products, and services. Businesses will most likely vie to build the most engaging marketing campaigns and attract potential clients every day. With the rise of virtual reality in social media marketing, marketers and public relations professionals will undoubtedly target this sector.
As a result, if VR advertising is booming, which is expected to be given that this is a new field with enormous potential, social networks will continue to evolve toward immersing users in virtual reality.
Since virtual reality is expected to be the future wave, investments in it are increasing year after year as the IT giants continue to drive virtual reality development. Perhaps there are many skeptics of VR, but let’s face it: almost all worldwide technologies have experienced resistance, yet they have still succeeded much more than projected.
After all, virtual reality gives up previously unimaginable communication, entertainment, commerce, and education possibilities.
Back to Reality
Virtual reality is rapidly infiltrating social media, and currently, any internet user may experience its limitless potential. It is employed in various sectors for both enjoyment and solving business concerns. And now, it’s on a direct path toward social network integration.
As we can all agree, people consume more material than ever before across a broader range of platforms. These experiences will begin to take root in our daily lives as marketers start to use upcoming technologies such as virtual reality.
Perhaps one day, VR will no longer require glasses since the actual and virtual worlds would be identical. In any event, if the development corporations successfully realize all of their concepts, this will most likely occur. But, for the time being, let’s put away this article’s VR headset and return to the reality of our daily lives.
