It's not one location anymore - it's everywhere.

Today at work we watched a webinar on mobile technology by Comcast (MMetrics) that got us all thinking about the future of mobile. As the adoption rate for smartphones accelerates, the need to adapt marketing strategies to mobile technology decreases because these phones will be able to access standard web pages. Interesting stuff. 

And what about for social media? I read this great article by Om Malik on Facebook’s mobile future that @chrisbrogan twittered about. The integration of social media with your phone contacts will further integrate those networks into your “real” life. The mobility of using your cell phone to connect to your networks when you used to need a computer will make them an even bigger part of your daily life. This exponentially expands the reach of the network, advertising on the network and the depth at which the network, and the people in it, affect you and your decisions. 

The blurring of  lines between the “real” world and technology is dizzying. Just yesterday my coworker, Brandon, sent out an email about a new mobile technology that will allow your phone to interact, through mini projectors and image sensors (that’s about as technical as my understanding goes), with the world around you. At one point the article suggests you could meet someone at a party and the phone/device would project their social profile information onto their shirt so you could access the most important information about them immediately. Crazy.

To me this further creates the need for authenticity in our world and in our lives. The time of a “public” face and a “private” face is over. Your information is public, you are public. You have to be yourself because if you aren’t, people will know. They’ll easily see you don’t match up with how you describe yourself in this or that profile and vice versa. 

This applies to brands as well. If you want a “family” business reputation, you have to act like it 24/7. If you want to be the “hip” new thing, you actually have to be hip. Branding as we know it will be forced to evolve. A “family” based ad campaign won’t give you a family image unless your company lives and breathes family and community service. Just putting a rap star in your shoes won’t make you “hip.”  And it’s seeping into politics too. We can see what our House Reps and Senators are doing, and hear what they’re thinking straight from their own mouths.

What about you? Are you ready for the real world?