The Chinese Calendar has 2010 as the year of the Tiger. No, not that Tiger…
This Tiger.
The Ad Mavericks calender says 2010 is year for the social media marketer. Sure, companies have already started using social media, but not nearly in the grand scale that they are about to in 2010. How do I know? Well, for the last year, every client or prospective client I have talked to has heard me carrying on about social media, how it could benefit them, strategies on how to get involved. Lately, they’ve been crying uncle. They say, “Ok, we believe you. Now what?”
Music to my freckled ears I tell them! We’re talking strategy and implementation with nearly every one of our clients today. And not just small companies. We’re talking about some of Iowa’s larger companies. Companies so big that you’ll say, 
“Suffering Succotash! ________ is using social media.” Only one client I talked to over the last 12 months is holding their position that they aren’t ready for social media. They are opting to “reach a younger demographic by pouring beer at Clive After Five” instead of developing a social media strategy. I wish them luck. I digress.
If you jump on Twitter today and follow advocates of social media, you’ll find we all have one thing in common. We sit around tweeting about how to best use social media in generic terms. We position ourselves as experts of the medium, which is cool for a while, but it becomes quite self promotional and more of a push medium. I’m guessing that comes to a halt fairly soon. For social media to work at all, I need it to be a push-pull medium. I want the content I push out to pull comments and retweets from the listening audience. I want invites to offline meetings to occur that lead to discussions about real business opportunities. No longer will we spend our time trying to convince clients and marketers of the power of social media, we’ll actually start implementing social media on grand scales.
I tweeted this the other day:
“If TV was invented today, would we all sit around making TV spots telling each other how to make effective TV spots?”
If you think about it, where else has anything like social media occurred with so many “pundits” that have an opinion on the right way and the wrong way to use a marketing medium. Never.
Brace yourself for 2010 – social media as you know it will be forever changed by marketers and companies smart enough to lead the sea of change within their industries.
Author: Josh Fleming
www.lessingflynn.com
P.S. By the way, there are plenty of trend predictions for social media in 2010 – take a look at this site and the predictions these four folks make.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice work Josh. I fully believe your predictions will come true…most likely in the first quarter. I think companies are going to realize it is time to act and stop sitting around listening to who has the better idea on concepts and platforms. Strategy is going to be the key word in 2010.
Thanks, Pete. I hope you're right otherwise I'll look like a real blow hard! : ) Thanks for reading, engaging and taking the conversation forward.
I couldn't agree more! I'm very excited for 2010 in respect to social media brands I am working with. We have our strategy and goals defined and I can't wait to begin implementing – it's going to be fun making things happen and tracking the results. This is the best time to be working in social media.
Josh, I agree with you regarding 2010 and the year of social media. It will be interesting to see how companies start actually using social media tactics. The push-pull method you talked about is ideal.
I recently came across this great article by @jaybaer about how we should concentrate on social media in 2010. His points are similar to what Josh has shared.
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