B.L. Ochman's 2010 Online Marketing Predictions: Blog ads, mobile, & solopreneurs

I wasn't going to do this post this year. But I can't help myself. I'm stuffed with opinions, and I want to share them with you. These are my 2010 predictions for online marketing, FWIW.

1- Big agencies will keep snapping up consultants with social media experience.
Big ad and PR agencies are realizing that they can't compete without hiring consultants who've been on the front lines of the new media revolution for the past several years.

My friends are dropping like flies. :>) David Armano joined Edelman, and Neville Hobson recently became Head of Social Media Europe at WeissComm Group, London. Who's next?

2- Customer will begin to be granted the respect they deserve.
Because nothing else matters if your customer service sucks.

3- Blog and other social media advertising will become the hot ad medium of the year and ad agencies will screw up big-time as they learn the ropes.
I've been saying this since 2005, but it takes a while for agencies to get the picture. They haven't wanted to touch the small budgets needed for blog and other social media advertising. After all, the average 30-second TV ad costs $500K. But a highly targeted blog ad campaign can be mounted for a month for much less.

Savvy advertisers have already learned that it is possible to have outrageously high clickthru and conversion rates through obscenely cheap and highly targeted blog advertising. Shameless plug: I have consistently achieved clickthru rates as high as 5.7%, and averaging 1.5% with super-niche-focused ads in blogs and other social media. Bonus Link: Debunking 5 myths about blog advertising.

4- Email will be eclipsed by a more efficient system.
I don't know what it will be, but there will be a breakthrough before the end of 2010 that will automatically prevent the "thank you" email and the thousands of other useless missives that flood our inboxes for no good reason.

Well, ok, this is more of a fervent wish than a prediction, but I'm hoping....

5- Mobile Rules
iPhones and similar devices that deliver reliable, always-on mobile internet access will replace laptops that everyone hates to carry no matter how light they pretend they are before you add the battery, etc. I've been saying this since 2008 but 2010 will see it happen.

6- Google stock will hit $1000 a share and split.
The founders will cash out and the company, and then be accused of piercing the corporate veil with creative accounting. They'll come out on top before the end of the year, and new accounting standards will be set by the case. I predicted this last year. And the year before, but it was, ahem, a premature evaluation.

7- Ad agencies will take the lead in social media.
PR firms have had a decade to"get it" and they are still busy trying to figure out "blogger relations." Ad agencies have been incredibly heavy-handed in their approach to social media marketing, but in 2010 they'll take the lead.

8- Companies will finally realize that using social media effectively is neither free nor cheap.
Before you add a lameass comment about how 20 year-old kids innately understand social media and the tools are free, read this, and this, and this.

9- Twitter will become a public company.
A flurry of smart stock buying will follow, while millions will still ask "isn't that where people talk about what they ate for lunch?"

10- Multi-media e-books will replace the ugly, unformatted e-books of the moment.
And a much better device will replace all the current e-book readers.

I would love to see some predictions for how Chamber's of Commerce will have an important role to play. Our Chamber doubled membership in the past 18 months because we have basically become a media company through our online networking. Chambers are the bridge between the small business community and the public. That bridge is social networking/media.

Your predictions are very interesting. #1 hits home as I've been approached by a few agencies for social media advice.

Great list. I will be watching for that email breakthrough. Email hasn't experienced any real changes in years.

Oh it's really nice blog about internet advertising. Online marketing is really gaining rapid popularity. To promote our site or product we have to do advertising so that people should know about it. Even i used to promote my site and sell my product online through fullservicead and my business is really growing. I agree that Online marketing doesn't mean only traffic but it means targeted and quality traffic.

Predictions were pretty awesome an what about doing papers online?

My friend and I were recently talking about the prevalence of technology in our day to day lives. Reading this post makes me think back to that debate we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.


I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside... I just hope that as memory gets cheaper, the possibility of copying our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's a fantasy that I dream about almost every day.


(Posted on Nintendo DS running R4i SDHC DS HomeBrow)