Going into the 2009, given the state of the Economy, I’ve wondered what is going to be the state of social media next year?

I think, what we’ll find is that we’re first going to have to solve the issue of where Social Media belongs and what role it plays (ie: Search belongs in Marketing and Web Analytics belongs in either strategy, marketing or, I suppose, Information Techology.

One of the other things about Social Media that’s somewhat different than Search or Web Analytics is that it’s much easier to incoporate it into the process of any group, which makes it harder for it to exist as it’s own group or disipline like Search Marketing and Web Analytics.

I think, in 2009, we’ll have made a lot of progress if we can see more organizations incorporating Social Media, formally, into it’s budget process (by giving it a budget and staff) – that, btw, will also be good for the Economy.