To kick-off the new year, we asked some of our smartest guest writers to reflect on the past year and look to the upcoming year. This post is by Rick Jensen, Senior Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Constant Contact. Rick oversees the company's sales and marketing functions. He joined Constant Contact in May 2011, bringing with him more than two decades of consumer and small business marketing and sales experience, a passion for small organization success, and a strong track record managing high-growth organizations.

We live in a world that’s more social and more interactive than ever before. For marketers, this brings a tremendous opportunity to tap into new tools and more opportunities for engagement to help build long-lasting customer relationships. As a result, separating yourself from the crowd and respecting the relationship you have with your audience is more important than ever. So, you’re probably asking yourself this question – what can I do in 2013 to help build these important customer relationships?

One of the biggest trends I see this coming year is the emergence of SoLoMo (the convergence of social media, local merchants using location-aware technology, and mobile device usage). This evolution lets marketers more effectively tailor messages and content like deals and offers to individual customers, greatly increasing the opportunity for engagement. Let’s take a look at what lies ahead for SoMoLo in 2013:

This is the time of year when we reflect on the past, and look to the future. Through the end of January 2013 (2013!) we'll be sharing guest blog posts our the annual Predictions & Reflections series. We asked some of our smartest guest writers to reflect on the past year and look to the upcoming year. This post is by Matt Jacobs. As a Director on the Connections Planning team at AMP Agency, Matt spearheads cross-channel strategy development and ideation to create integrated marketing solutions for a range of Fortune 500 brands. Matt has broad marketing experience spanning roles in business development, planning and program execution for clients such as John Hancock, Staples, TJX, Hasbro and the Food Bank For New York City.

Let me start with a confession: I’m a marketing nerd. As others sat around on New Year’s Eve discussing their resolutions and predicting the next Mayan-sized apocalyptic occurrence, I eagerly rattled off proof points for 2012 being the “Year of Social.”And while I admit that I’ll probably make the same case for 2013 in twelve months time (and I probably could have made an equally impassioned “Year of Mobile” argument), 2012 was a pretty epic year for social media.

Cue the short end-of-year social media montage: Facebook hit a billion monthly users in September; Pinterest and Instagram joined the big leagues; MySpace started its latest comeback attempt; World records were set on Twitter during the Olympics only to be trumped by the Presidential Elections; Gangnam Style happened.

Guest post by Tom Shapiro. Tom is founder of Digital Marketing NOW, a full-service digital marketing and design firm that offers strategy, web development, design, SEO, paid search marketing, conversion optimization, display advertising, analytics and more. Shapiro cuts through all the hype and develops clear, differentiated marketing strategies focused on real results for his clients. Throughout his career, Shapiro has worked with a range of Fortune 500 clients, including P&G, HP, AT&T, Sears and Kraft Foods.

This post is part of the September blog series. With FutureM coming in October (do you have your pass yet?!), we're thinking a lot about marketers and consumers, and this series reflects that. We asked our writers to answer this question: "what is it going to take for marketers to catch up to consumers?" We'll be sharing several posts each week of the month. Stay tuned for diverse viewpoints and creative answers to this question. This post is by Diane Deng, Advertising Acrobat (Online Marketing Coordinator). Born and raised a Bostonian, Diane graduated with a BS from Boston University in Communications with a specialty in Advertising. Aerodynamic Diane spends her spare time flying in the air through her practice of aerial yoga while pursuing her Masters in Visual Arts at Harvard. Not only is she a flying machine but a marketing machine as well. She recently launched her first national cross-promotional marketing campaign. When Diane is not gliding on yoga swings, she swiftly manages Temperature@lert's new media accounts while building client and affiliate relationships. For this airborne gal, she likes her temperature like she likes her aerial yoga, a warm 78 degrees.

Temperature@lert has tons of users (30,000 devices worldwide), but converting them from user to consumer varies across all verticals. It seems more important now than ever to know your user in order for them to become your consumer. There’s no simple wax-on, wax-off technique nowadays and it’s definitely time to consider how to warm up your users.

First let’s define user and consumer in the easiest manner:

This post is part of the September blog series. With FutureM coming in October (do you have your pass yet?!), we're thinking a lot about marketers and consumers, and this series reflects that. We asked our writers to answer this question: "what is it going to take for marketers to catch up to consumers?" We'll be sharing several posts each week of the month. Stay tuned for diverse viewpoints and creative answers to this question. This post is by Keith LaFerriere, SVP, Director of User Experience at Arnold. From creative director to user-experience leader, Keith has taken on just about everything throughout his fifteen-year career. At Arnold, he works across all accounts and is responsible for establishing the customer experience across disciplines including information architecture, discovery, usability and business requirements.

If you’re a marketer, your primary goal is to accurately time and properly communicate to your consumer why your product or service is the right choice. But getting the right message to them at each point of the “funnel” can be tricky. What’s a marketer to do? I can think of a few things that might help.

DITCH THE FUNNEL

The excuse that the funnel is easier to plan against because it’s presented in linear fashion is bogus. Additionally, the funnel more often represents what marketers would like consumers to hear rather than what they want.

Today’s consumers are constantly bobbing and weaving through a complex and highly competitive landscape where they are relentlessly bombarded with messaging ranging from makeup to McDonald’s. And it’s happening on every device they own.

By Hannah Fleishman. Hannah is an intern at MITX. She is a rising senior at Emerson College and grew up in Italy, Germany, and Egypt. Hannah is passionate about traveling, writing, marketing, and smiling.

Emerson College hosted a social media panel last year. I arrived excited and left with mild anxiety. One of the panelists suggested that everyone have a blog to show potential employers that you’re passionate about something. I didn’t have a blog, so naturally I just heard “you will never be successful.” I needed to start blogging. I didn’t know what I was going to blog about but I had to think of something, otherwise I was a passionless pit (is that copyright infringement or is it word play?).

My friends all use Tumblr so I created an account, spent too much time picking out a free layout that someone else had designed to express my creativity, and decided this would be a travel blog. Original, I know, just like my layout. But hear me out. I spent 15 years growing up overseas. I travel back to Egypt twice a year and figured I could blog about life as an expat, or post anecdotes on being a third culture kid. Now I could say I dabble in blogging while shamelessly showcasing how worldly I am. I couldn’t believe how easy it all was.

FutureM, the weeklong event experience on the future of Marketing, today announced eleven new session topics and meet-up leaders focused on digital media, mobile and e-commerce for its national fall event. Today’s session leaders include:

By Hannah Fleishman. Hannah is an intern at MITX. She is a rising senior at Emerson College and grew up in Italy, Germany, and Egypt. Hannah is passionate about traveling, writing, marketing, and smiling..

A few months ago I was scouring the Web for a paid summer internship - the four leaf clover of student work experience. I came across a job post on Craigslist that read “Paid Social Media Intern," a diamond in the rough. I opened the link and learned that an unnamed (classic Craigslist) firm was looking for someone to keep its Twitter and Facebook accounts updated and relevant. The schedule was flexible with a minimum of 10 hours a week, all from home, for 20$/hr. Was I being tricked by the big bad Internet? Could I really get paid $200 a week for doing something I had never been trained to do? Something I do for fun? Oh, the perks of being a millennial. Before coming across this job post I did not have social media listed as a skill on my resume; I assumed that was expected of me, having been born in the '90s. But we all know what happens when you assume.

Since the Craigslist post I have been asking myself, is social media a skill? Sometimes I think yes: Emerson College recently added a social media course to the marketing curriculum, services such as Klout rank your social media influence, BostonTweet guest speaks on the topic because he is just that good. Clearly it is something to be practiced and perfected, like any sport or instrument.

FutureM, a weeklong event experience on the future of Marketing, today unveiled its 2012 schedule of sessions, with more sessions and sponsors being added on a daily basis. Participating companies and attendees, including SCVNGR, Google, CampusLIVE, Hubspot, etc., will facilitate discussions and discovery about the future of Marketing, including:

This post is by Seth Lieberman, CEO of SnapApp. Seth has more than 15 years of online marketing experience. When he is not immersed in social media marketing, you can find him at home in Brookline with his young family or indulging in one of his many hobbies, from gardening to photography to music to woodworking. You can reach Seth at @sethwlieberman or slieberman at snapapp.com.

Over the last twelve months, social media has evolved. What was a nebulous branding opportunity is now viewed as a powerful customer engagement tool and social media “results,” which were focused completely on likes, tweets, and shares—if they were measured at all— are increasingly focused on the impact on the bottom line.

What specifically do social media –savvy companies that are getting real, measurable value from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and more understand and do well?