Middle School Marketing - Thoughts for the New Year

There was a definite buzz this week around social media predictions for 2009 and how brands should interplay. It was a natural topic of discussion for my Middle School Marketing group. Jen Krupey from Viget Labs posted a nice recap. Sitting at the intersection of traditional and social media, my prediction for 2009 is that we'll see a stronger push by big brands within social media communities. As with all things social media, you get what you give, and the result will be a few great case studies - but more than less of these brands will view social media as a low cost alternative to traditional advertising and will ignore the concept of community and embark on campaigns that will end up compiled in the 2009 volume of social media gone bad. I think mid-sized companies will continue to engage in social networking at a cautious pace next year. I believe they understand the concept of community and the bandwidth needed to engage authentically, but stressed maintaining this year, will ultimately will fall back on what they know (the more traditional stuff), while keeping their big toes in and waiting until 2010 to more fully embrace social networks (having learned from the mistakes of the big brands). It's probably no surprise that I think small business will continue to be "mavericky" when it comes to connecting with their buying audiences and will serve up some strong case studies on how community engagement helped them buck the recession and get their businesses to the next level. What do you think? Where do you view your business or your client's fitting into this progression in 2009?