TOP 3 TRENDS ALL BUSINESSES SHOULD BE AWARE OF

Not sure how to boost your business? Use the top trends of 2011 to help guide you in the direction of consumers. Get the top 3 trends here!

USA Today highlights these trends…

1. It’s Apptastic! The only thing more ubiquitous, more buzz-worthy, than Facebook is the popularity and ubiquity of smartphone apps. People are using apps every day, all day long, not only to have some fun and kill some time (death to pigs by Angry Birds I tell you, death!) but to run their businesses as well.

The smart small business will tap into this trend by both finding and using those apps that make running their business simpler and more profitable, while also offering their own apps that make buying from them faster and easier.

2. It’s a Facebook world and we are just living in it: Evidence of the total and utter dominance of Facebook is all around us: Mark Zuckerberg is Time‘s Man of the Year. The Social Network is one of the top movies of the year. Facebook topped 500 million users.

It is the very ubiquity of Facebook that has changed the business game.

At a recent webinar I gave, someone asked, “Does my business have to be on Facebook?” Of course the answer is no. But Facebook is where the action is right now, so it would be dumb not to have a presence there. Whether it is having your own Fan page, or learning how to advertise on the site, or using it to grow your reach and brand, tapping the popularity of Facebook is the way to go right now.

3. Mobile marketing creates opportunity: How do people find out that the ice cream shop is having a sale if those folks are not already Twitter followers of that business? Mobile search. The proliferation of smartphones, iPads, netbooks, and tablets means that consumers are increasingly searching for businesses on the go as much as they are while sitting at a desk.

So your small business needs to be present on mobile local search results, and you might also consider creating geographic-specific mobile search ad campaigns. The next frontier in sales is going to be mobile searches and ads that result in on-the-go purchases.