It's New Year's Day and I'm doing what many business owners do at the start of a new year - taking stock generally and thinking about changes ahead in 2010. I've read quite a few of those 'top ten predictions for 2010' - not all of them do I agree with or know enough about to comment. But here are some of the themes that do interest me...
- Mobile technology & marketing will continue to improve - more competition for the iPhone, better apps, smarter marketing initiatives targeted purely at mobile users. There's a whole generation accessing the internet purely on mobile phones.
- Social media will move more into the marketing mix rather than being seen as an exotic (or needless) add-on. I think small businesses will surprise us here - unlike in the early days of the web when corporates led the way, there will be little or no time lag in adoption of new social media tools and ideas by those small businesses that 'get' online marketing.
- Real-time search will gain in significance, and this will have implications for search optimisation and paid search campaigns. Businesses will start demanding immediate visibility in searches and be looking for new ways to achieve this (which leads us back to point 2).
I also was heartened to see Market Leader's January 2010 edition focus on the networked economy, the increasing importance of consumer feedback loops and the need for honesty rather than marketing spin, especially as these are the kinds of messages I've been giving business owners throughout the year.
