At BG, we have a team where each member specializes in a specific area of the digital marketing field, including mobile marketing, social media,  SEO, PPC and blogging. This team compiled a list of our predictions for 2010 in the five most popular areas in the advertising and public relations world today.

Social Media 2010 Predictions

1. As social networks mature, the value of using each tool (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) for business will become more defined and specialized. Companies will become increasingly strategic about where their resources go and we may see some pullback on tools that aren’t yielding results, while explorers will start testing less mainstream networks such as digg, del.icio.us and foursquare.

2. Company sites will become increasingly social. Applications like Facebook Connect will allow customer engagement within the site while communities, blogs and targeted pages, eliminate the need to jump onto Twitter, Facebook, etc. in order to engage.

Email Marketing 2010 Predictions

1. We will see a simplification in email creative design, to cater to mobile users, while retaining speed-to-market.

2. Expect to see a lot more calls to engage via social media in marketing email in 2010. Around 60% of marketing emails today have no social media elements in them, which is a huge missed opportunity to gain additional brand touch points with engaged consumers.

PPC 2010 Predictions

1. Rapid responses to market news, and the buying up of relevant keywords early, will give marketers an edge over the competition.

2. As search engines get smarter, many SEO techniques will become less effective, making PPC and blogging must-haves instead of nice-to-haves. Shrewd keyword choices that don’t have a lot of competing bidders, and close watchfulness of keyword performance will be the hallmarks of successful marketers in this arena.

Mobile Marketing 2010 Predictions

1. As apps become more popular, advertising within the apps themselves will dramatically increase, especially with free apps. These will become more frequent and the design element will become more savvy, which in turn, will make skipping/avoiding these mobile banners/messages almost impossible.

2. Messaging that is targeted to someone in a specific location (i.e. in Downtown San Diego) will become the new thing. Strategically placed nodes will pick up Bluetooth signals and serve a person an ad relevant to the exact location they are in. They will be given the option to opt-in or opt-out. These preferences that you select will follow you around like a puppy.

Blogging 2010 Predictions

1. Blogs will look more like news sites and news sites will look more like blogs. As bloggers become more sophisticated, blog designs have more functionality than ever. Many top blogs now resemble news portals with featured content and categorization. Simultaneously, as traditional news sites become more and more social with the integration of Facebook fan boxes and tweetmeme buttons, they are beginning to aesthetically look more like blogs.

2. Development of niche blogs will increase. With the plethora of blogs out there, new blogs will have to be extremely targeted and identify a niche audience. While this limits the potential number of readers, it ensures that the blog’s traffic is relevant. It is also a new blog’s only hope to compete for search traffic.

There you have it. Those are BG’s 2010 marketing predictions on where Social Media, Email, PPC, Mobile Marketing and Blogging are heading in 2010. I will be curious at the end of the year to look back and see how on (or off) we were on our predictions for the year. Do you think we missed any key changes?