Most of us have known for some time that the world of Advertising is changing. It seems like every day there is some new technology or website that captures the imagination of the public. Reaching potential buyers for products and services is becoming increasing fragmented and finding the right mix for your company becomes increasing difficult.

The internet has become the hot area of advertising. We have seen great increasing the amount of money spent on internet advertising and the trend does appear to be slowing. This trend has given rise to companies such as Google who know have the money and resources to fund the development of numerous free applications for the consumer. The affects of this type of business model have many ramifications, but that is another topic.

This topic is about search marketing and what is predicted to grow from 25 Billion currently in 2009 to 55 Billion in 2014. That is an amazing amount of growth for a segment that already seems to be getting a bit saturated. Much of this growth will come from 2 areas (1) Search Marketing and (2) Display Advertising. So what does this mean for your business? (Reference E-Marketer July, 21 2009 – Interactive Marketers Lean on Search)

Well number 1 it means if you don’t have an internet marketing strategy you better start thinking about developing one. And please take some time to develop a real strategy and don’t do it yourself. Number 2 it means that the space is going to get more competitive and more costly. Which is why should really develop a good strategy to maximize your budget and gain the best results. You might be asking how this all relates to your Social Media strategy.

With all the recent talk about Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook you might think that Social Media is going to take over the world and I might be one of those people. However, when it comes to ad spend on social media it is predicted that Social Media will account for only 3 billion of that 54 billion dollar total in 2014. What this means to me is opportunity. Opportunity for business owners to develop effective social media strategies to reach and engage customers in a very new space. While it might feel like these technologies have been around forever, they are still very new and very dynamic. See my post on Social Media Convergence.

With such a dynamic space and so much opportunity it will be even more important to develop a social media strategy that your company can follow. “Do it yourself” in this space will end badly in most cases. It will be even more important to find a consultant or company that you can trust in this space. It seems like today everyone thinks they are a social media experts. Network meetings are full of people giving advice on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. They brag about the number of connections they have Linked or the followers on Twitter. Yet, they produce no tangible results for themselves or their colleagues. Thus, developing a strategy that you can execute and feel confident it is critical to your success.

In closing it is important to understand that your business is unique and not all technologies are good for your business. You must understand your market, your customers and your results. A strategy must take advantage of the technologies that can help move your business. There is a happy medium between the business that refuses to engage and those that try to engage on every level.