I had the pleasure of speaking to a very diverse group of University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) consisting of undergraduate and graduate students and business owners and professionals from Reno and Lake Tahoe. Thank you Dr. Bret for putting it together. The event was mainly Q&A format but the very first question Dr. Bret asked every one on the panel was: How is 2010 going to be better or different for you with regards to social media?”. I expanded my answer to cover how I see online marketing changing in 2010. With traditional marketing declining an estimated 7.9% and online marketing spending increasing 9.5% according to eMarketer, the importance of online marketing for businesses is increasing tremendously. The three trends I see in the 2010 that would benefit businesses if used wisely are:
- Video – YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Hulu has grown from 63 million streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009. (from Social Media Revolution video). 77% have watched an advertising on YouTube. (from Razorfish Digital Report 2009). 13 hours is the amount of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. 412 years is the amount of time it will take you to watch every video on YouTube. 100 million is the amount of YouTube videos watched daily. These and more interesting stats from What The F**K is social media presentation. Video is here to stay. You can use it to sell your product, explain your idea, showcase your property. People prefer to watch instead of reading. As a business, figure out how to embed video on your website, use video to sell your product or service, use video on online ads, explain your product and make sure your video is compatible on mobile phones.
- Mobile - According to the Mobile Marketing Association total U.S. spend on mobile marketing will grow from $1.7 billion in 2009 to $2.16 billion in 2010. More and more companies are looking for ways to get to consumers on the only device they always carry with them – their cell phone. According to the Razorfish Digital report 2009, 57% access the Internet from their phone, 50% have downloaded an app for their phone and 30% have interacted with an ad on their phone. Two major trends for mobile marketing this year are going to be Mobile Money and Mobile Ticketing. You will be able to send money abroad from your cell phone as well as purchase airline and other tickets on your phone and not have to carry paper print out with you. Mobile applications for businesses are huge – from text messages for your business to iPhone apps, this is going to be an exciting year for mobile marketing.
- Location/ Social Networking – this trend focuses on geo enabled games and software from companies are Foursquare and Loopt. Social network sites where people (and companies) are going to be aware of each others surroundings. People are going to be able to connect with friends near you and companies are going to be able to provide relevant coupons and messages. You will be surrounded with information stream that is relevant to your behavior and current location. Twitter may be overtaken by these technologies in 2010 as companies try to attract people who are physically closer to their location. A very interesting and somewhat scary trend to watch in my opinion.
I promised a few people in the UNR social media class that I will make the stats available. So here you have it. Your turn. What trends and interesting social media or online marketing stats do you want to share?
I still think Twitter is a good tool to have in your bag for reaching out to your customers, building brand awareness and responding to questions. Even with this decline, eMarketer projects a continued increase in Twitter usage over the next year. 
If you haven’t decided whether you should be on Twitter or not, start by reading what companies are already on this digital space and how they using it effectively to build their brand. Twitter has become instrumental in some Fortune 500 companies in their efforts to respond to people and improve their customer service. Which brings me to second point.
