Future Trends in Social Marketing

As Freddie Laker predicts in his blog entry concerning the top new trends in social media that by 2012 the term "social media" will be replaced by "digital media" due to its commonplace nature in the business world. As businesses scramble to figure out the implications of the vast social networking and marketing tools available to them, the fact remains that we are in a period of transition.

Pretty soon the veil will drop from before our eyes and we will be able to integrate effective marketing and lucrative business strategies seamlessly into our everyday world. Two aspects of Laker's prediction, also reiterated by Debra Aho Williamson in her blog, are that there will be a significant increase in social marketing as a means of understanding and reaching out to customers/clients while at the same time leaving behind the focus on "nowness" for the "semantic web."

In terms of the first prediction concerning influencer marketing, I feel that this method of reaching out to people through social networking tools is completely revolutionary. The idea that your social network will define the type of content you search for has both its positives and negatives.

Positively, your search options will be more closely tailored to what is relevant to you and those within your network, including friends, families and colleagues. Say goodbye to Google Reader and hello to Google's Social Search and Wave tools. Information tailored to your needs and interests will become standard, and in many regards, very useful.

However, it is important to still have the option to reach out to content outside of your network because, as connected as we may become, it is still important not to isolate oneself to just the things you think are relevant to you. One of the beauties of the Internet is the ability to stumble upon content outside of your element, especially useful in creating balanced, informed decisions about those that lie on the other side of the spectrum.