Takeaways from the Texas Conference for Women Part II

What is the biggest competitor you have online?

The Back Button!

So says Social Media and Branding expert Shama Kabani of The Marketing Zen Group. I was very fortunate to attend her talk during the 11^th annual Texas Conference for Women.

Lovely and personable, Shama immediately relates to the audience when she tells the story of her unsuccessful job hunt after college graduation.  A visionary ahead of her time, in interview after interview she touted the benefits and marketing advantages of using Social Media to corporations. Back then, she received a lot of blank stares, a “thanks, we’ll be in touch,” and plenty of rejection letters.

Fast forward to today:  she heads up a global company, and she has used social media to make that happen!  Shama states that there has been a paradigm shift where people are now the media. From yelp.com, to online restaurant reviews, the new marketing paradigm is defined by consumers, rather than corporate ad-driven. Today’s savvy wired in consumers already know what they want and where to go to get it.

(Note from Karen:  Consumer-driven marketing is an expansion on the “crowdsourcing” phenomena, where people in a crowd, where an event is happening in real-time, film it with their cell phones, and then use Social Media platforms to post the video to the Internet and Tweet about it).

According to Shama, the “Top 3 Digital Trends” that will drive the future of the Internet are:

1)      Google +. In late 2010, Facebook surpassed Google in terms of web searches. Google + is Google’s answer to Facebook. It has an advantage because it gives more points on a weighted search because it is Google!

2)      Blogging Communities. Many bloggers get together and post their posts in one place, on one webpage, and on a single website. This has the benefit of increasing traffic to that site, and promoting multiple blogs on a corresponding Facebook page. (Check out Glassheel.com).

3)      Content Aggregates. This pulls content together from all over the web into one place. Within a few years, all video, mobile, web-based content, and TV will become integrated and seamless.

So where is this going?

Today the Internet has evolved into Web 2.0 where the web is used as a social platform to connect, collaborate, and communicate with others. In 5 years, the Internet will be catered to you individually (much like Amazon does today with making suggestions according to your preferences, and Google does with its filtered Internet searches). Because of this consumer expectations will be higher, and thus business owners, marketers, and brand builders must rise to a level above the consumer.

This means two things:

1)      Business owners must innovate, adapt, and aim high to stay one step ahead of the consumer.

2)      Your reputation is online. Watch what you say and what you post. All of the information that you post is being used to create a permanent profile of your buying habits and ultimately your life (think Facebook’s new timeline). Don’t make unprofessional comments because they are stored permanently on a server.  It starts early – according to Shama, 81% of kids under age 2 already have a digital footprint!

So where does that leave you?

Are you constantly innovating in your business?

Do you have a new plan for your business and/or using Social Media going forward?

I would love to hear from you!