What to Expect in 2010 – Part 1
2009 was so last year. In the ever-changing world of online marketing and social media, the trends and best practices of 2009 are quickly becoming things of the past. So what do we have to look forward to in 2010? Here is part one of a three part series detailing what we feel deserves to be watched in the next year. In this post we’ll talk about the first three trends to keep an eye on, Real Time, Conversational Marketing, and Social Media Optimization.
1. Real Time
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to return to the days of hand-written letters? We’ve come a long way since old Alex invented the telephone which ushered in the first “instant” form of communication. We’ve come so far that email is almost obsolete. Who wants to wait 10 whole minutes for someone to respond to your email when you have Twitter, instant message, and 10,000 Google search results at the click of a button?
Truly we live in a real-time environment. We like our information served with a side of right now, and the trends point to this. Why wait until you get home to post a restaurant review when scores of iPhone apps let you post feedback as soon as you get dessert (via Pete Cashmore)? Why spend time agonizing over the name of a song when you can “Shazam” it and know the title, artist, album, and be able to purchase in less than 10 seconds? Other key movers such as Google’s new Social Search, and Google Wave make online search and online collaboration more real time as well.
Expect more and more web applications, websites, companies, and brands to embrace the power of real-time. Whether it’s real-time news updates on heads-up displays in cars or instant notifications of sale items individualized to your tastes sent through your preferred communications channel, we’ve only just scratched the surface. Real-time is a big player and it’s here to stay.
2. Conversational Marketing
Jason Falls, a social media strategist, says that conversational marketing will be the prevailing success tactic for brands in 2010. What exactly is conversational marketing? Think of it as viral marketing evolved. It’s essentially capitalizing on conversations that are either happening anyway, or happen as a result of marketing efforts, and building a marketing strategy around those conversations. You’ve heard it said that word-of-mouth marketing is one of the more effective means of marketing – well, word-of-mouth hasn’t gone away. It’s just changed it’s appearance. Conversational marketing is essentially word-of-mouth marketing that happens in real-time or close to it across the web and the world.
We can see an example of this in the recent Facebook experiment where women announced the color of their bra as their status to help breast cancer awareness. Here is an example of where conversational marketing could have played a much larger role. Imagine the impact if the founders of this idea encouraged women to not just post their color, but to also provide a central location for women to have conversations about breast cancer, how to prevent it, success stories, etc. We saw a blip on the radar as thousands of women participated, but it could have been a much larger blip had the conversation been fueled.
Brands and businesses that effectively build and encourage conversation around their products or services will find more success than those who simply sell by way of traditional means. Expect the conversational marketing approach to grow and develop in 2010.
3. Social Media Optimization
2009 was the year of social media. In 2009, Twitter doubled, then tripled it’s user base. Facebook crossed the 300million user threshold, and Apple sold more than 2 billion applications. So has social media peaked or will we see more of the same? It’s our view that if 2009 was the year of learning what social media is and what it can do, 2010 will be the year of optimizing social media. There is still room for a few more large players in the social media world, but we should start to see less “new” players and more optimization and innovation of “old” players.
We don’t need another Facebook. But we will see an optimized Facebook. We don’t need another Twitter. But we will see an optimized Twitter. In 2010 we’ll start to see businesses and brands who have spent the last year or two learning the ropes, start to optimize and utilize specific social media platforms for their specific needs. As we’ve mentioned before, not all social platforms are for everyone, but social media is for everyone. Companies must learn how to use social media well to be successful in 2010.
This is part one of a three-part series on what to expect in 2010. Stay tuned for more. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed, or you can also follow us on Twitter.
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