Sit Back. Deep Breaths. Stare Into the Crystal Ball. We’re Going to Tell You the Future! of online marketing

1. A tall dark stranger will come into your life – Ominous or the beginning of a romance novel? In this case the tall dark stranger is one of many other strangers that businesses are going to attract to their product or service via social media, “Ugh, you said social media. My eyeballs just fell asleep!” Social media pimping by marketers is nothing new. What will change however is Google+ will take on a more prevalent role for optimization (even if like 5 people actually use it) so businesses should get that account along with Facebook and Twitter. Basically, have Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ and your bases are covered. Additional sites are gravy though if you have the time and the manpower to make it happen.

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What is native advertising? Will it help your business? How do you do it?

Native advertising is a new term, but there is some argument as to whether it is a new form of advertising. The simplest way to describe it is advertising which “blends” into the medium where it appears, and advertisers and marketers have been doing this for years, from newspaper ads disguised as a column to radio ads that try to sneak their commercial in by making it a song that fits the station’s format. Social Media got a hold of this tried and true trick of marketing, and as they tend to do, made up a new name for it, native advertising—but as is always the case with social media, this type of ad has the added benefit (or responsibility) of encouraging interaction through shares, likes, comments, and more. So native advertising is this other type of advertising that has always been around, but for social media.

If your business has social sites it may have occurred to you at some point that it is a bit harder to get people to care about your brand during their social media time than you first imagined. Who knew? Your customers are not actually all of that interested in singing the praises of brands and products like a paid spokesperson. They must be bribed, cajoled, asked nicely to talk about you in most cases at least.

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