I've been observing an interesting trend in our industry over the past two years: paid search marketers, abandoning their posts to conquer the Web's next advertising frontier -- Facebook Ads. Just this past summer at SMX Advanced in Seattle, I was reminded of this changing climate among PPC marketers.

Once, just once, I'd love to hear an announcement come over the PA system in some public venue: "Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Is there a search marketer in the house?"

I was reading a post by my good friend Mark Jackson today about the balance of search marketing as being a combination of both art and science. I couldn't agree more, and have had this discussion many times over the years in both this column and with many in the industry. One of the comments in the article also reminded me of a topic I have spoken a lot about over the last 10 years, and that is about including the "search experience" as part of the "user experience."

You probably already know this: YouTube is now the second largest search engine, having displaced Yahoo Search earlier this year. So, that's big. And now that YouTube has a spiffy new interface, it's a good time to think about (or rethink) your video content and promotion strategies.

Internet searches have clearly broken free of the tethers to desktop or laptop, home or office. Smartphone ubiquity and the increasing popularity of tablets for casual computing have caused all of us to have multiple primary devices to access information on the Web. The implications for marketers -- and search marketers specifically -- are huge. It is not just where users are doing the search that has changed, but how users do that searching. Marketers need to be prepared for the rise in mobile adoption and the shift in behaviors that come with it. And if they act quickly, search …

Every quarter, I fill out an online survey about digital marketing trends. One question always shows up: "Are you looking at social as a replacement for search in your online marketing strategy?" I always answer no, and to myself, comment that it's a stupid question asked by someone who obviously doesn't know much about online marketing. But now I wonder -- is it really such a stupid question? Aren't many experienced marketers asking themselves exactly the same question?