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There is no morecontrolling yourbrand. Those daysare over. You canmanage it, but youcan’t control it.—Amy DeLouise, Amy DeLouiseConsultingnetworking will replace radio and television advertising if they continue to remain thesame. Because social media are more reachable, they will only continue to grow. Theyprovide more knowledge to consumers—both B2B and B2C—they can set aside globallanguage barriers, they are acceptable, and they’re easy.”The big trend Paine predicts is the move toward mobile. “Right now, people areredoing their Web sites to make them more interactive, but what they really need to dois make them accessible on mobile. Increasingly, people are accessing information fromtheir iPhones or their Palms. So if your Web site doesn’t work with mobile, they will goon to someone else’s that does.” In the far-off future, Corcoran envisions people havingtheir own profile as their personal ID on the Internet. They will be able to jump from siteto site with their personal ID and connect to people as they search the Web within theconcept of colonization.Other forms of media, such as TV, will also start to become more socialized, hepredicts. The most immediate and noticeable shift is that social media are being takenmore seriously by senior management, which is now figuring out how to incorporate itinto their daily work plans, according to DeLouise. Until now, new media were viewed asseparate entities to be relegated to an intern. That’s no longer the case. Resistance iswaning and acceptance is on the rise.Don’t let fear paralyze you into doing nothing. “You need to jump in, read somebooks, partake in a seminar, and get to understand the new media,” says Paine. It isn’tall that difficult. “If you can carry on a conversation at a cocktail party, you can participatein Facebook and Twitter,” she says. While definitions of social media may vary interminology, experts agree on the basic concept that they create transparent communitiesof conversation with an endless stream of possibilities for all who accept andimplement their powers. O|L20 November/December 2009