Marketing today isn’t what it once was. In fact, it’s more than it’s ever been.

As you can imagine, the way we market today is dramatically different from the way we marketed 50 years ago when there was no internet, no fax machine and limited television access.

Every five years, the American Marketing Association readdresses their official definition of “marketing” in order to keep pace with changes in technology and consumer behavior. Just released earlier this year, the latest iteration says that:

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

This group’s members represent a cross-section of the marketing industry, and their definition will now be the official one published in books, taught in colleges nationwide, and embraced by marketing professionals.

And while it’s encouraging to see marketing recognized as an omnipresent activity, and to see that this new definition finally includes the tasks, strategies, and purpose of what we do and who we reach, this year’s development begs the question...

With the proliferation of technological developments and social networking, how will the definition change in 2013?