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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.