One can only speculate, but looking at some facts and playing with some figures paints a portrait of a post-present reality filled with shifts in how we approach marketing and what we do with our advertising budget. This does not mean we will abandon old marketing techniques, but will adapt them to go where the people are: online.

Mobile Media
Ninety one percent of the United States’ population own a mobile phone and the majority of these are becoming smart phones. This is in addition to the popularity of the portable tablet, or handheld computer. These devices are aware of your location, making it easy to adapt a marketing scheme that caters to your locale. The days where big corporations spent millions of dollars on a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl may be dwindling because it makes more sense to target a specific need in a specific place.

Social Media
Facebook, as the premiere social networking site, has topped Google for the highest traffic on a weekly basis in the United States. Marketers have started to catch on to the key role that social media can play in an advertising campaign. This will only increase in popularity in the next 10 years with a blend of digital and television time. It’s long been understood that word of mouth is the best way to find and maintain a loyal customer base. Social media takes this age-old wisdom by storm because its how the majority of us receive our news and connect with others.

Search Engines
Phonebooks are already obsolete. We instead go online; the majority of people conduct an online search for goods or services first. In the next 10 years we will see changes in search engines algorithms making it imperative to have a smart and relevant SEO in place. More users online in the future means the need to cater results even more specifically to what the searcher needs. If commercial truck parts are what they want, they will be directed to online sources with online demonstrations, local inventory statistics, live chat and a price comparison chart.

Granted, we see some of these changes already, and those companies who don’t adapt will be left behind, but the future of marketing will combine these for the most effective results. The original skills of marketing are still relevant, but now they must be augmented for the new medium: our digital world.

This video was made back in May 2010, but I still love to watch for all of the facts of social media. My favorite part of social media is the fact that I can stay informed about important news, but never actively look for it – “We no longer search for the news, the news finds us.”