When we enter the last month of the year, it is always interesting to predict what will happen in the next year. Not only amusing, a successful prediction often lead to a good anticipation of important business decisions to make. In this post, we are going to look at some available predictions from several sources.

• On Internet Marketing : “Internet marketing continues to grow in importance for many marketing managers”, according to Ad Operations. Creative digital marketing agency Strange (www.strangecorp.com) has also published a report outlining next year’s key trends in online marketing. As more advertisers look to digital, Strange believes that keyword inflation will most likely continue at a high level, and foresees more negotiating over CPA (cost per action/acquisition) advertising. Key areas for expansion will be mobile advertising, local search/localized services and social media.
• On Internet and Social Media : Compassion In Politics published an interesting prediction. In it, they identified some key points like : crowd sourcing will be a huge social media trend for 2009, a renewed focus on technology efficiency and productivity, leveraging offline connection with online connection, mobile and iPhone will continue to see massive user and application growth, video driven communities that drive conversation will take off in social media, and monetization will prove to be huge as more startups have to confront budgetary and cost-cutting issues. The WPromoter agrees with them on at least one point, – which is the prevalence of online video. On the other hand, they put more emphasis on the rise of local search, the supremacy of creativity, a more personal web and user-generated content.
• On Mobile : Daniel Robinson of Vnunet.com mentioned that mobile services specialist Critical Path sees five top trends already developing: the emergence of the ‘real’ smartphone; the development of vertical ecosystems such as Nokia’s Ovi; the digital divide; the re-emergence of location-based services; and the economic outlook. The ‘big five’ handset makers are likely to survive, but the market could see the emergence of a ‘big eight’ instead, as Apple, Google and RIM increase their share at the expense of the current dominant players, according to Donald Dew, chief technology officer at Critical Path.

All in all, their predictions clearly highlight that 2009 will be a very exciting year indeed. Just reading their predictions will give you all the excitements, – let alone incorporating them into your business planning of the oncoming year.

To get a better picture of the predictions, I strongly encourage you to read their post which I cite below :

• Key Online and Internet Marketing Trends in 2009 Revealed by Strange
• Top Seven Social Media, Online Marketing, and Internet Trends for 2009.
• 5 Trends to Watch for in 2009 and How to Make Them Work for Your Business.
• Critical Paths highlights key mobile trends for 2009

At this point, it may not be necessary to explain what blogging is. You should know, you are reading one of them. Yet, corporate blogging is a whole different game to personal blogging. This blog is an example of corporate blogging.

Depending on the direction, corporate blogging is classified into 2 groups :

• Internal : Accessible only to employees, internal corporate blog is very similar to company bulletins or newsletters.
• External : Meant for public consumption, many times it involves PR efforts and soft-selling writings.

Focusing on external corporate blogging, let’s pose a question : Do my company needs a corporate blog ? There really is no easy way to answer this, but some issues you need to ponder are :

• The Nature of Your Product / Service : Is it something that requires a lot of information ? Is it something that can be used in many ways, – and thus, has interesting tips and tricks ? Is it something that needs a heavy PR strategy ?
• Your Company’s Ability to Blog : Contrary to popular belief, corporate blogs are NOT the place to dump your PR essays and press releases. The most successful corporate blogs are the ones who shares some interesting news and insights about their fields. If you’re not sure that you do have someone in your company that can write about interesting issues ASIDE of your product, – then maybe it’s best to forget about the idea.
• Consistency : I keep on stressing this. Interesting topics are not enough when you don’t have consistency. It is as true in the world of corporate blogging as in the personal one.
• Control Method : Corporate blogs need a supervising editorial team. The word “team” is defined loosely. It can consist of you only as the CEO, or maybe a specially-paid group of 6 people. The key point is, you have to have a feel as to what your writer posts about, – and develop some methods to have them stay in the company’s directions.

Those are issues at the very basic level. There are many dimensions that you need to at least be aware about before you decide to take the proverbial plunge. To help your research, the following references may be particularly helpful :

• Wikipedia page of Corporate Blogging
• Sitepoint’s List of 15 Good Corporate Blogs
• Jeremiah Owyang’s Essay on The Many Challenges of Corporate Blogging
• Practical Guide To Starting A Corporate Blog by Jason Falls