Let's pause for a second before heading off into the future. For many brands, you could probably argue that all marketing efforts have already gone social. How?

A high percentage of purchases are already preceded by online research. And where there is online research, there are search results. Those search engine results pages often bring up links to a number of consumer review sites. Now, if you've done any amount of conversation monitoring, you know that reviewers don't exactly pull their punches. Even with shopping sites like Amazon, consumers posting negative reviews are hitting the brand where it hurts most -- at the point of purchase.

So given the above scenarios, even in a "controlled" push-media world, many brands can't even make it through the far end of the buying decision funnel without running head first into a social media situation. Compounding matters, many consumer comments are on social sites like Yelp, where they quickly rise to the top of search rankings.

This point-of-purchase invasion is heading for the physical shopping world as well. Have you tried any of the bar code scanner tools for mobile phones? I haven't found one that works well. Today. But with several of these technologies already in consumers' hands, how long until that's as seamless a part of the buying process as reading an Amazon review before purchasing online? Shoppers will be able to scan an item themselves and get all sorts of product information -- right in the store.