What is our future in Social Media Marketing?

If businesses aren't aware now nearing the end of 2010 that they must be highly educated and involved in social media marketing, then marketers in my opinion aren't doing their job! In order for us to be able to leverage technologies for business needs, we must be up-to-date on all the news and social trends around us. Now because of this, this is why some may wonder what the future brings.

A few things to keep in mind are:

Learn from our past history. We are currently seeing the same types of changes as some did a decade ago, and we need to be able to recognize these patterns to learn from them. If we continue to avoid the past and make the same mistakes we will never improve our position with businesses, thus possibly becoming obsolete.

Forget about De-Marketization. As soon as we are able to get people to realize that marketing and communication go hand in hand, and that we are using communication skills that people want to be reached by, we wont ever have this cross our minds again. 

Methodology will never change. Facebook and Myspace are constantly changing, but the way that people communicate within them will always remain the same. They may change things to keep a greater appeal to its users, but marketing is marketing and that will never change. It wasn't that long ago that I remember beepers and faxing were the new top tool!

So can any of you predict what will become of social media marketing? Will it change with its tools or always remain the same?

Smartphones Take over Mobile Browser Use in U.S.

The shift in momentum towards feature phones represents a movement for the mobile content and advertising industry. Marketers should become very aware of this and shift their focus towards creating with these devices in mind.

The boom in smartphone Internet access has started to rise due to the fact of the devices: iPhone, RIM BlackBerry & Android.

Some may wonder is this the reason that Facebook continues their strong international growth? Is this the reason that sites such as Facebook and Twitter are attracting larger, more frequent audiences among U.S. users aged 50 and over? I can say for a fact that traffic to Twitter from mobile devices has grown by 62 percent since April, according to the social network!

If marketers were to focus on this for their future strategies, imagine the possibilities for not only their company, but for us as consumers as well!

5 Signs that you are a Social Media FREAK

Thanks to technology we are living in world where everything that was right is now wrong and up is now down. We have come to the point where we can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is just in our head.

We are constantly connected with people around the world and yet people are saying they feel alone or disconnected from everything around them. Technology has single handedly changed our society and redirected us to follow a new “rule book”. To be completely honest, it is completely turning us all into “Techie” freaks!

SO what are the signs that this is happening to you?...

1. 1.    You spend so much time on Twitter that you have over a million plus followers and over half of them is people you don’t even know and would have no intention of EVER meeting them!
2.   Someone has robbed you and stolen all your money from your Mafia businesses. You become depressed to the point of not wanting to show your face in public, but don’t worry there’s still Farmville.
3.  You spend more time “socializing” online than you do with your real friends.  Who cares if your Tweet followers don’t laugh with you but at you?! It’s what you perceive them to be that really matters. 
4. You wake up in the morning and before brushing of the scum from your teeth, you open your laptop and check your news-feeds on Facebook & Twitter. Finally you turn to check your clock and its 4:30am… your alarm isn’t going to go off for another 2 hours! 
5. You can’t leave the house without your smart phone. It use to be that you cared about your makeup being just right and now your checking to see how many more minutes until you can (stop the car, obviously with laws and all) update your status location.

5.    

Now I’m sure that there are many more that I haven’t covered but these are the ones that stuck out to me. But then again we all should know better, right?! 

Are you a Social Media Freak,… like me?