At the beginning of last year I made some predictions for how the online marketing landscape would change during 2011. So how accurate was I? 

More SMEs will turn away from PPC as costs continue to rise

There’s no accurate data for PPC use by SMEs in 2011 as yet, but Google searches for PPC are declining at roughly the same rate as 2010. It wouldn’t be surprising if PPC took a hit in the face of falling marketing budgets – after all, it takes investment in both management and keywords.

SME social media use will increase

It’s safe to say that this came true. A Facebook page and Twitter account are now seen as essential tools for doing business, and if the proliferation of hashtags at the start of TV programmes is anything to go by, this trend is only going to continue.

Google Places will change again

The big change for Google Places last year was the removal of external site data. Although this hasn’t affect users so much, it has meant that local search marketers have had to concentrate much more on Google Places itself to get a good local ranking, rather than benefiting from work on other local directories.

Online marketing budgets will reduce

This is certainly true on an absolute scale – marketing budgets overall are down as businesses seek to cut costs in a stormy economy. However, due to the relative cheapness of online spend, the proportion of marketing budgets allocated to online appears to be on the rise.

Online business collaborations will rise significantly

There are no obvious signs that this came true, but with the continuing increase in broadband speeds, and the coming super-fast mobile network, online business collaborations are going to become easier and easier. Certainly one to keep an eye on.

There will be no ‘next big thing’ in social media

2011 was of course the year that Google+ was launched. It’s certainly big news but it’s still a case of ‘one to watch’. Although it’s attracted somewhere around 60-70 million users so far, that’s nowhere near Twitter and Facebook. It might remain something for early adopters.

Then again, some predict 400 million users by the end of 2012 – roughly half what Facebook has now…

Most SMEs won’t become ‘mobile-friendly’

As predicted, there hasn’t been a great move towards mobile friendly sites amongst SMEs, perhaps as a result of squeezed development budgets and the growth of tablet devices.

As screens on mobile devices get bigger, and the processors faster, the perceived need for a mobile-specific site is lessened, so I doubt this will change any time soon.

I’m giving myself a generous 5/7. What score would you give?

Image Credit: Ghostboy

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2012 at 1:10 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.