As 2009 draws to a close we are likely to see the usual sort of stock-taking with regard to social media, and also prognostications for how it is likely to develop as a marketing channel. It reminds me a lot of what was going on with email marketing at the beginning of the decade. Stand by for a blizzard of studies like this one showing that most businesses plan to increase their social media spend in 2010.

But a more significant step will be the greater ease of access that advancing technology offers for the use of social media in a business context. LinkedIn has just announced that its LinkedIn Platform, previously exclusive to select partners, is now available for developers anywhere to integrate into their business applications and Web sites. This means that users will be able to access all 50 million LinkedIn profiles and contacts directly via an embedded widget.

Experts predict all kinds of exciting developments to flow from this. For instance with regard to events and exhibitions blogger Stephen Hold enthuses about the opportunities for database development. ” Social media marketing will become more robust,” he says. ” Registration solutions will become the purchase opportunity for inbound marketing invitations.  Event organizers will have the opportunity to connect with online communities interested in the event brand.”

Even more exciting, adds Hold, is the integration of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as one common social media web.  TweetDeck, one of the best existing desktop clients, is about to launch the new LinkedIn platform to provide updates along with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Incidentally, the inclusion in this suite of connections of MySpace could stop it being totally overshadowed by Facebook, he suggests.

More companies are using Twitter to promote deals and discounts. And
Twitter users are gathering together to aggregate the best deals and share
them with their friends.

See how it works here.

While some companies cannot decide how to get involved with social media, others are pioneering innovative uses of Facebook.

Take a look at these examples below. Intel is especially interesting where they are attracting fans to promote discounts on new products.

Not enough thought, in my view,  is going into facebook as a brand/business platform. Nor is it being taken seriously enough by brand teams. Millions of people use Facebook, but still brand activity tends to focus on ads or search engine optimisation, rather than on engaging in a strategic way with these new platforms which people are spending most of their time on.

Learn more.

Can Murdoch charge for content? Should he try to remove free News International content from Google? Leading social media commentator, Jeff Jarvis thinks not. Google brings attention and audiences to Murdoch, and Jarvis argues that Murdoch’s failure is not to be capitalising on the search engine traffic coming his way.

It’s well worth a read.