The media landscape is altering rapidly, with consumers now able to access a slew of content via mobile devices that have become portable media centres.

“The common term everyone is using is integration, but no one is really sure how consumers truly use media in their lives,” says Jeffery Seah, CEO of Starcom Mediavest Asia. “Consumers’ lives are now taking place in many more places, so brands must support this newly found convenience and advertising must be placed in this context.”

2. Social media will continue to grow this year, fuelled by the rise in popularity of micro-blogging sites. While social networking has enjoyed longstanding popularity with the youth market, we can expect older demographics, utilising increased leisure time and the ability to connect on-the-go, to spearhead growth.

2010 could well be the year Twitter truly expands into Asia. Already the number one site of its kind in Taiwan, its usage will grow in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and Malaysia, because of its local language facilities.
With such growth, Seah believes this platform will become increasingly important to brands’ marketing activities in 2010.

“Social media is always discussed in client briefs. Now it is only executed by around 10 per cent of brands but it will become a much more widely used marketing tool.”

3. There will be more consumer control. There’s little doubt that enhanced technology is going to have a profound effect on media in 2010 and, according to Steve Garton, global executive director of media at Synovate, this will give the consumer greater power. “We’ve seen it coming for some time, but 2010 will be the year that marketers understand the consumer really is in control.”

Torie Henderson, CEO of Omnicom Media Group Singapore, adds that consumers have already responded to technology changes. “It’s the marketing and media industry that needs to adapt,” she says.

4. TV is still a viable medium, but it is evolving. Studies tend to suggest that TV is still a highly effective advertising platform, especially as it is still the preferred platform of many to optimise viewing experience. The falling price of HD-enabled sets will continue to stimulate growth.

But brands must understand how viewing habits have changed, with differing platforms and the idea of ‘multi-media tasking’ while watching shows.

“The model of having a TV show and running commercials around it is retreating because people are re-inventing what video is all about. The way they watch TV, sometimes via different platforms, is becoming complicated so advertisers must adapt and integrate marketing into their changing lifestyles,” says Seah.

Henderson believes the mobile screen will become increasingly relevant. “Mobile will continue to rise as a result of converged social tools that allow multiple apps to be used in one operating platform,” she says. “The industry should be looking quickly at measurement and industry standards as they relate to mobile.”

5. Brands must re-invent themselves, but the basics remain the same. The concept of brands communicating their services and products in more meaningful ways, rather than simply being an advertiser’, is likely to evolve in 2010. Brands will strive to find content which resonates with their personalities and which will add impact to the marketing communication.

Garton says: “The best campaigns will continue to run across many platforms, because target audiences use different media through the day to meet their needs. Understanding what these touch points are and what they mean to consumers must influence where budgets are placed.”

Source: http://www.media.asia/searcharticle/2010_01/2010-Predictions-Will-this-year-signal-the-demise-of-traditional-media/38506

Textual Transcript:

What are we doing with social media?

Actually we are doing quite a lot. We are trying to help companies understand that social media is not just about the technology – that’s what you see all the time: Flickr, Facebook, and so on.

What is really important firstly is the people who are the recipients, so the target market. Always go back to the basics in marketing and PR which is understanding your target market. So you start with analysis, trying to find out who is talking about what and who are the most important people.

Once you understand that then you match your message to it. Which is simply trying to come up with ideas and stories, whether they are articles, or a mashup with traditional PR and new PR, where you literally express new information in many ways. Simply because now you can link powerpoint, word documents, videos, slides, etc.

So the two most important parts are still – understanding your target market and then developing a message that people are actually interested, and letting people talk about it. The message is no longer what you say, a one way street; it is literally about being able to say something and then spreading it out to others and letting them comment without being too defensive and avoiding the eternal ‘no comments’.

It seems like yesterday when companies rediscovered the art of talking with customers, not at them. Thanks to Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, among others, companies realized that customers wanted to enter into a conversation with them, if not to benefit their future needs, at least to solve a particular problem, demand or expectation.

Companies were no longer the one-way communication houses trying to force us to buy what we didn’t need. We were now a player in that conversation and today’s development of online social media is but an extension for that craving to be heard, to play a part and even lead. No longer is it enough to buy what we need and live with the consequences. We now vote with our feet, our voices, our blogs, our videos and even Powerpoints presentations.

People are now the media.

What is social media marketing about?

We know social marketing from the technologies that support them: Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr, SlideShare, and their regional equivalents. Social marketing is, however, more than that. It’s about content, it’s about what people say, what companies say, what the government say and how such news are understood, interpreted and disseminated to an ever-expanding web of contacts, friends and acquaintances.

It’s about influencing the influencers.

It has been said that online, anyone can be a writer, a publisher and even a media owner. Not everyone can be successful at it however. It takes a certain ability to tell one’s truth. Falsehood and manipulation will be noticed and derailed faster than with traditional media. And it’ll leave a mark forever.

Do a search for social media marketing and you’ll find thousands of sites, thousands of experts, thousands of commentaries, white papers and eBooks. What you won’t find however, is a regulating body that states what is the truth, what is not. What is excellent journalism and what is mere opinion. No body, literally, other than the public at large that is. Individuals, whether commenting on others or companies clarifying a point, are the new regulators. It’s almost like a self-regulating mechanism that is always off-balance yet soon back in balance. Heed the feedback or forever be shunned. Not easy task for marketers trying to control perception.

What happened to the old marketing tactics? Do they still work?

Interestingly, they do. Consumers and customers will always want to see, feel and taste the goods and services they buy. The way they approach that experience has changed however. It’s almost as if using old marketing tactics in today’s world only made sense if used in conjunction with the new media. That’s the beauty of this new world. We still aim for a target market – we just have more tools to reach them (if we know where they are.)

Does your target market live online?

Proper marketing starts with understanding one’s market. This has been proven over and over again: any marketing strategy that starts with anything else is doomed to fail. You must understand your target market: know where they are and how to reach them. This requires a new form of behavioral analysis and data discovery. This is where leveraging today’s technology can make or break your campaigns even before they start.

The best marketers know for a fact that not all their target markets reside online. Some are still technology phobic and prefer to talk with a human when it comes to buying anything. They also realize that in the complex web of interactions, discussions and relationships it has become harder to define what triggered a particular buying call. Was it the message’s location? The message itself? The tool that carried it? The friend or business partner that said something or sent a link? The possibilities are endless.

While analytical tools can help you reduce such uncertainty, it still remains uncertain and the best one can do is to test as many of the social media marketing elements as one can afford (another ‘old’ marketing precept that is still valid).

What would you talk about?

This brings us to the next step in your social media strategy: What would you talk about?

The message can no longer be you. Well, at least not entirely. Your message has to be targeted specifically and be validated by a third-party who has either tested your product and services or bought them over-and-over again. Nothing less will do. Social media technology further provides each individual with the power test – spreading the word at the speed of light. For example, type ‘Product Review’ in YouTube and be amazed by the diversity, seriousness and sometimes foolishness by which we, the consumers, review and use all kinds of products.

The future of social media

This is hard to argue because for many, social media is the future and whatever will happen next is simply an extension of what we know today. The funny thing is that’s exactly what every trend pundit would say about his or her trend of choice. Social media is not a fad, that’s a given. You could further argue that they are already an established trend, which would lead to the thinking that they’ll soon be commoditized.

The real question however is not so much what is the future of social media but what is your future in social media?

After all, most are just tools until a consumer, CEO or pundit creates a story that will be carried to the most remote corners of the world. Social media marketing is about the story. Curiously, that is what good traditional marketing was. Have we forgotten this?

A few readers asked whether there is a similar site widget as “AddThis” or “ShareThis” for social bookmarking and social sharing. So, I’ll share one social bookmarking widget here.

The widget I want to share has exactly the same name “AddThis” on org.cn. AddThis.org.cn provides social bookmarking and social sharing website widget for publishers as well as browser plugins for Internet users (under development).

As shown above , the social bookmarking and sharing widget allows visitors to share the site content to 49 services (17 shown in the above screenshot).

The subscription widget allows visitors to subscribe to the website content by RSS, instant messengers, and twelve other services. Widget Plugins for WordPress and Z-blog (an ASP blogging platform) are also available.

(written by Rocky Fu from China Internet Watch )