Every good scientist knows the importance of getting a reaction, but a chain reaction — that calls for celebration. In today’s socially-savvy marketplace, chain reactions create waves of awareness that often translate in the long term to increased sales of your product or service. That’s why being on top of your social media game makes a difference. In fact, social media marketing is a trend that’s here to stay — and expand — as it reflects the world we live in. At the same time, marketing itself has taken a new direction shifting the focus from getting a reaction, to creating opportunities that lead to interaction, and finally result in a wave of chain reactions. It’s somewhat ironic that at a time when we are attempting to personalize our marketing messages to individuals with better targeting, we must be keenly aware of the far-reaching effects of that message to the larger social networks that define them. In the end, social media is just one current trend that helps us to reach our target markets. To be successful, it’s important to be watchful of marketing trends as they emerge. The following are some of the trends that should be affecting the way you think about marketing in 2014:

1. Mobile Madness: Consumers are spending less time at their desktop and more time on their mobile device. Is your site mobile-friendly?
2. Real-time Marketing: Consumers want to keep up with you while events happen. Keep in touch by sharing on Instagram in real-time.
3. Scaled-down Content: With so many people turning to mobile, it’s important to provide bite-sized content as well as more meat and potatoes for the hungrier consumer.
4. Re-humanizing Data: The last few years has been data-driven and marketers are hungry for a human perspective to counterbalance the numbers. Are you asking for feedback from real people?

Do you know what’s #trending?