Big Changes to Social Media in 2010

Social media as we knew it changed dramatically last year, and 2010 is looking to be a year of even bigger changes.

In the final months of 2008, Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com, wrote a blog predicting social media changes that would occur in the year 2009. And after significant changes did take place last year, Lichtenberg decided to repeat this idea for 2010.

Lichtenberg believes that in today's world it is impossible to separate social media from the online world, so we should embrace this fact. In years to come, we will not be talking about social media, but rather what we are able to do with it.

So, in her blog on readwriteweb.com, Lichtenberg shares what she believes will be the 10 biggest ways social media as we know it will change in 2010. Here are a few examples.

1. Social media will be taken over on a mobile level.

It is no secret that everything is going mobile. Smart phones have almost turned the average cell phone into dinosaurs, allowing users to access the internet easier than ever before. The iPhone accounts for about 33% of mobile web traffic, and the IDC predicts the number of mobile web users will hit one billion by 2010. As mobile access becomes more and more common in the years to come, our phones will be even more commonly used as a social media tool.

2. Online-Offline Integration will hit, big.

It is becoming freakishly easy to locate people these days, but many people seem to want to be found. With tools like Yelp's latest geo-tagging enables application and Twitter application's like "Twitter360," social media will allow users to pin-point information about themselves and even where they are located, helping others to find relevant information and people depending on their locations.

3. (and I quote) "Women Will Rule Social Media"

This may have to be my personal favorite. Lichtenberg claims that in 2010 women will be more dominant than they have been in a long time. Lets face the facts: right now, women are making 75% of the buying decisions at home and 85% of all consumer purchases. Also, social networks have at least 50% female members, and women of ages 35-55 are the ones who make up the fastest-growing population on Facebook. With the role of women growing rapidly online and offline, it seems that the future of social media may be held in the hands of a female.

This may seem like a trending topic, since it is not much of a surprise that there will be changes in the future, but these changes are especially important as social media becomes such a necessary tool in our lives. It is important that we are aware of these changes taking place, not only in 2010 but all the time, and know how to use the vast amount of social media available to us.