For internet marketers and businesses alike, 2012 promises to be a movin’, shakin’ year for all organic, social and mobile trends! Despite the tough economic climate in 2011, the rabid run toward strategic mobile marketing as a primary retail sales tool continues unabated with updated analytics, tools and apps.
The growth curve and development of retail-focused mobile marketing is huge, particularly in generating that retail sale in near-real time! Push marketing and hyper-local ads with a social media support structure, along with emerging apps like Google Wallet make it easier than ever to search, shop and spend on the go. The benefit to consumers? Competition and price comparisons work in their favor in a big way, not to mention ease and convenience. The benefit to retailers? Buying everything from a new phone to a gift card to a slice of pizza becomes simpler and more intuitive via your phone, providing opportunities to capture both impulse buyers and smart-search consumers.
It seems that social media has now entered the “public trading” stage, with:
- Google Plus giving Facebook a real run for the money this time around
- Social image sites like Pinterest capturing a big chunk of our online enthusiasm
- Linked In becoming the “Who’s Who” of professionals and companies, garnering information on people and corporate profiles that boggles the mind
Oh yeah…and who would have though that cool QR code would be considered old-fashioned or quaint quite so soon?
Data collection and analytics has become more sophisticated this year, with Google changing their interfaces and enhancing Analytics, Webmaster Tools and of course, Google Plus. (Whether we like it or not, we’re dropping “data doo-doo” everywhere we go!) Bing and Blekko also joined in with updates to their search algorithms and analytics.
As we move forward, experiential data gleaned from all of these programs and platforms will provide a trend pattern not previously available given the emergence of new information. Make no mistake about it – your Search marketing plan for 2012 will require a comprehensive global approach to lasso the gigantic trifecta of search: organic, social, and mobile.
