12 Marketing Trends for 2012: #1

Number one of 12 trends for 2012 from Publigroupe. Right on the money. Really, you will make some money if you pay attention to these trends!

SOCIAL MEDIA MAKES STRONG BRANDS

Digital marketing, and especially social media, are playing an increasingly sig­nificant role in promoting brand ­awareness. Traditional media are being pushed into the background. And within online media, many companies now believe social media activities are more important than their own websites. Nevertheless, websites are still a central entry point for initial contact with a brand. The biggest challenge in social media is to monitor and influence dialog about the brand so that the shaping of brand perception is not left exclusively to the public.

Groups
Because it can be shared between all sorts of different groups, social media content potentially comes into contact with a very large audience.

Dialog
Social networks offer an opportunity to enter into dialog with ­industry opinion leaders. This helps in turn to disseminate brand messages.

Feedback
Monitoring market perceptions is crucial when using social media. Monitoring makes it possible to get direct feedback about the brand and to participate in (positive or negative) dialog about the brand.

Proactive
In social media, it is vital to take a proactive approach. Otherwise there is a danger that brand perceptions are left entirely to the public, which puts the brand in a risky position.

Relations
The explosion in the use of social media has reduced the number of visits to platforms controlled by the company itself, e.g. its website. Nevertheless, this traditional web presence is still an important tool for ensuring brand consistency. A website also functions as a kind of flagship store for the brand and helps to build up long-term client relations.