A horrific earthquake struck Haiti Tuesday. Millions of miles away professionals are helping rebuild the devastated country without ever leaving their office chairs; students from around the globe have had a hand in the disaster relief while sitting in their lecture halls and dorm rooms.

In less than two days, a host of organizations including the American Red Cross has raised more than $4 million to aid the devastated country, thanks to $10 donations sent from individuals around the world via a simple text message.

Mobile giving makes collecting donations from around the globe faster and easier than ever. Texting a word to a short code (in this case, “Haiti” to 90999) sends a donation of a predetermined amount, which then shows up on your next cell phone bill. It’s that simple.

And with such a basic call-to-action, getting the word out is as easy as updating your Facebook status or posting to your Twitter account.

The possibilities of mobile giving stretch far beyond raising fast funds for disaster relief. Here at T3, we’re fortunate enough to be gaining firsthand experience in the mobile giving arena alongside Mobile Loaves & Fishes, an incredible organization that provides food, clothing and dignity to the homeless. By texting “MLF” to 20222, you can donate $5 to help keep people fed and off the streets.

Whether it’s enabling people to act when tragedy strikes miles away or helping a homeless person during the morning commute to work, the power of mobile giving is about empowering people to act in the moment when they’re inspired to support a cause.

Everyone is predicting that the media recovery will lag behind the rest of the economy. Experts say we may not be out of the woods until the second half of 2010. Given that everyone misjudged how badly digital media would be hit this year, I’d venture to say that even late 2010 is optimistic, though I think there will be pockets of success and bargains to be had for those prepared to invest. 

This may be social media’s make-or-break year. I expect to see much more proof around the value of micro-targeting for non-long-tail advertisers, as well as for the value of friends and fans. It’s a balancing act to not overrun a wonderful forum with corporate messages and shills. If we, as advertisers, are clumsy in this space, we could end up really hurting it both for ourselves and our fellow social media users.

Mobile will be buoyed by the increasing sophistication and affordability of both the carrier networks and handsets, but is likely to remain a largely niche tactical tool. Because the phone is a two-way device, dialogue has to be part of the strategy in any mobile implementation. This, of course, is the basis of social media, so the good news is that those who master its application relative to specific goals within a social strategy should shine.

I’m still holding out hope for print, and I think we’re going to see good use of integration across digital and traditional platforms—a combination of bargain pricing and increased accountability will keep these options in play.

In my mind, everything hinges on what I call “turnkey accountability”—clear, unambiguous “results” that clients can take to the bank. We still bridge digital results very loosely to specific business objectives, and there’s still too much reliance on proxy-ing basic metrics for tangible goals. It gets even cloudier as social and viral strategies gain prominence, but it will be imperative to try and solve this over the next year.

What we’re likely to see more of this year is increasingly intertwined media and PR strategies, as well as a greater emphasis on communication strategies rather than media plans. This is a little alarming from a media professional’s standpoint, as it could imply that we do less buying and placing and more strategizing and collaborating as part of the media function. This is good in the long run because the actual investment is likely to shift away from space or time to the strategy itself. It’s bad because it acknowledges that media placements have become highly commoditized and because strategic planning is harder for agencies to package up and assign value to.

The near-term reality is that we’re likely to find ourselves trying to convince clients they need to spend nearly as much on the strategy and measurement of media as on the media itself. The problem is that while CPMs will continue to fall, the cost of determining effectiveness will remain high. The question then becomes whether the combined costs still compare favorably to the traditional perception of media efficiency.

Honestly, I don’t think 2010 is going to be all that pleasant, but I think we’re going to emerge with a higher degree of understanding and effectiveness than we’ve ever had before. If we don’t, I’m not sure we deserve to emerge at all.

Editor’s note: T3 looks forward to 2010 in a series of blog posts that offer insight on marketing trends over the next year.

As we head toward 2010, it is becoming clearer than ever that the days of getting your feet wet in social media are over. It’s time to jump in.

Social media is where digital was about 10 years ago. Everyone sees the potential, many have jumped in, but there’s still a familiar you-go-first trepidation about getting in without the defined benchmarks traditionally used to measure success.

Many brands already understand that the changing landscape calls for a shift in expectations, along with the continued shift of media dollars into digital and social. Now we’re beginning to see real adjustments in how a company’s organizational structure is shifting to maintain a social presence.

A key piece of advice we give to clients is to define social as a channel, not a campaign. Any successful social approach requires an ongoing commitment to the conversation. It also requires an appreciation that the best social channels are two-way and need to be managed for information to be facilitated and shared.

The social channel has its own set of social rules. It is a conversation and not an ad pitch disguised in digital dialog. How a brand shares information (tone, presentation, humor, interactivity) is as crucial as what information is shared. It’s like body language that way—the non-verbal cues are powerful in getting people to be interested and engaged in what you have to say.

As a result, brands need to really get inside the heads of their audiences. What is successful for one company may be flat-out wrong for another. With different brands come different values and goals. Some clients will find that social programs are best used to collect information about their customers, while others may use it to announce new product lines.

Clients should be asking, and agencies should be prepared to help define:

• How do you provide solid reasons for being involved? (What is the value of a “friend”?)
• How do you analyze the effectiveness of your efforts while industry-standard benchmarks are still being formed?
• How do we define what elements are of most value to your brand?
• How do you attribute “ROI” to your efforts?  (Perhaps that should be reframed as ROE: Return on Engagement?)
• How do you get upper management to not just buy in, but embrace the cause?

Social media is a uniquely powerful way for clients to give customers a consistent voice. It is another means to help delight those customers—whether they are raving about something they love about your brand or ranting about something they wish you’d do better.

It starts with creating new definitions of measurable success and avoiding the trap of retrofitting social programs purely into existing benchmarks. A better measure will be a mash-up: some of your proven brand perception measures mixed with newer approaches. Rather than looking for what the other guys are doing, find what works for your customers and your brands and then fine tune it. The commitment to shift the thinking and redefine what success looks like will be worth it.