2010 is not very far away. Debate over web is already going on that how
social media will be in the coming year. Many trends watchers and trend makers have published research articles to predict the future aspects of social media by keeping the trends of past years in mind. Therefore, I have decided to review all the authority articles to see what conclusion we can extract about social media in the next year.
One authority article which has been published on Harvard Business Publishing is titled “S
ix Social Media Trends of 2010” and written by David Armano, who is a part of Dachis Group, an Austin based consultancy delivering social business design service. As Harvard is famous for business reviews, same essence of business philosophy can be found in the article.
In the opening of the article the writer directly predicts the future trend for 2010:
“So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010,
social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess.”
One other very important prediction is done about social media is that; most of the companies will have social media policy for the coming year. Let’s see how writer see this aspect:
“If the company you work for doesn't already have a
social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year. From how to conduct yourself as an employee to what's considered competition, it's likely that you'll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.”
Some more very important predictions have been done like mobile becomes a social media lifeline or sharing no longer means email and so on.
“It looks like social media is on the menu for most marketers next year. A survey of almost 2,000 MediaPost subscribers found that over half plan to have "a presence on social networks" as part of their marketing mix in 2010.”
Writer further list down the social media venues according to popularity for 2010:
• Email, with 56.8% realistically planning to use it
• Social networks (56.3%)
• Keyword search (49.7%)
• Radio (42.2%)
• Magazines (42.1%)
• Online display (40.5%)
• Event sponsorship (36.9%)
• Rich media display (35.5%)
• Direct mail (34.7%)
• Regional TV (32.8%)
• Regional newspapers (31.7%)
• Out-of-home (31.2%)
• Email sponsorship (29.5%)
• Online video (26.7%)
• Mobile SMS text (26.1%)
• National TV (18.2%)
• National newspapers (14.8%)
A very famous blog of social media influencers,
ReadWriteWeb.com, published a guest post titled “10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010”written by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com. She has written her predictions in a very long and comprehensive manner and nearly covered all the matters related to social media in 2010. She opens her lines by giving the current figures:
“Today, it is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month -- 70% of whom are outside the US -- and it accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic, according to Pew nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter or some other service to check status messages, and 94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad -- it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic.”
Among the 10 ways, one way she explained in the sub heading “Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology”, is a matter which I have already been thinking before. Let’s see how she discussed this prediction:
“With Web technology maturing and the near-elimination of previous barriers such as closed platforms and discrete logins, companies will now look to innovate the way they use existing technology, rather than focus on technology enhancements themselves. We will see a move to leverage existing assets -- content and capabilities -- in new ways, turning information to wisdom and insight to action. Whereas once user research required focus groups and usability tests, companies will utilize the Web's capabilities to achieve the same. Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people's attention and engagement while re purposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.”
Social Media Today, a famous online social media community published an article “Five Social Media Predictions for 2010” by Joel Postman (originally published on
socializedpr.com). I recommend this article worth reading as it has some rock solid predictions. In his one paragraph he predicts that:
“We’re nearing the end of the hegemony of Google Search. This is not to say Google is in immediate trouble, or some other search engine will take its place, but traditional search is becoming irrelevant, and other kinds of search will begin to challenge Google. Even Google, a Web 1.0 company — or Web 1.5 company at best — recognizes this, and launched its Social Search experiment. Technorati, an early leader in social (media) search, could have owned the space, and maybe they did for a while, but not anymore.”
Conclusion
All the articles which have been reviewed and which have not been reviewed but published on the internet already, more or less predict the same future of
social media. Everybody is predicting the substantial growth of social media as well as marketing over it. Marketers will more tilt towards social media as compared to other venues of online and traditional marketing. Hence, the conclusion is that, social media will thrive drastically and create more charm for people around the world.
