Just when you thought you had Twitter down, a basic understanding of LinkedIn and you finally know how to upload a video to YouTube, I present my take on social trends that are on the horizon next year. From plug-ins to location-based marketing initiatives to the move to higher bandwidth, there's change afoot in the world of social media.
I've compiled these 10 trends from my own observations, the opinions of my fan base online and other experts. Consider this a starting point for what to incorporate in your own social-media strategies in the New Year.
1. Location-Based Marketing: Location services will grow in popularity as people get more comfortable checking in to a business. This will be the result of enhanced safety features -- such as privacy options that block your location from public view -- and more enticing brand offers.
It's time to acquaint yourself with sites and applications such as Foursquare, Facebook Places and Gowalla. These sites will help you better target prospects' likes and interests, pique interest and influence purchase decisions by offering discounts, promotions or giveaways when they “check in” to your business.
2. Video Platforms: YouTube might be one of the largest user-generated video-sharing sites on the Internet today, but other platforms will begin to surface that are more business-focused, easier to market videos on and not as crowded. Sites like Viddler, Vimeo and Dailymotion will gain momentum with a stronger focus on live streaming on sites such as interactive broadcast platform Ustream, or streaming straight from blogs.
3. Text Campaigns: As the mobile arena grows, small businesses will continue to move marketing campaigns to mobile phones.
MessageBuzz and Enowit offer tiered levels of service and free demo accounts that allow you to test a mobile-marketing campaign. Start by incorporating a mobile widget onto your site to help collect mobile numbers through an automated system and create campaigns specific to area codes or regions.
4. For Cause Tweet-a-thons: A Tweet-a-thon is a fundraising campaign on Twitter for which users encourage their followers to tweet about and donate to a particular charitable cause over a specific period of time. These initiatives will gain in popularity as savvy entrepreneurs capitalize on the relationship-building advantages of social media and the good publicity that comes with giving back.
I recommend you choose a cause for 2011 and keep your campaign simple. An excellent book with how-to information and ideas on how to tweet successfully is Unmarketing: Stop Marketing, Start Engaging by Scott Stratten, president of the marketing firm Unmarketing.
5. The Move to Higher Bandwidth (4G): Say goodbye to 3G. The use of higher bandwidth will not only be a necessity but a demand from busy consumers.
Widely becoming recognized with carriers such as Sprint and soon to be Verizon, 4G speed allows marketers to get the message out faster with quicker download times. Jump on this bandwidth wagon early and incorporate it into your 2011 marketing plan.
6. Wordpress-Based Websites: Open source publishing application Wordpress will become the platform of choice. Why? It makes it easier for websites to implement search-engine optimization at little to no cost with plug-ins, which add specific capabilities to software applications.
To stay competitive, I recommend that you consider moving your website to a Wordpress platform. These sites are user-friendly and do not require knowledge of HTML code.
7. Plug-ins: The use of plug-ins will proliferate, with thousands of new options surfacing monthly.
An increasingly popular plug-in is Scribe which monitors and scores your keywords and updates to your site automatically to increase results with your search-engine optimization.
8. Review Sites: Websites dedicated to customer reviews will dominate the social media landscape. Consumers want to be heard, and more importantly they want answers. Sites such as Groubal.com, will achieve this by consolidating common user-submitted complaints and presenting those petitions to businesses, demanding answers for their wrongdoings. Consumers are even creating blogs specifically about teaching people how to complain effectively.
This is another reason to monitor conversations about your products and services online. Moving into 2011, make sure you have a plan for how to respond to positive and negative reviews. Remember to respond immediately. Reviews will start to spread like wildfire with these sites.
9. Monitoring Conversations: Show your customers you're listening and responding. Make it a New Year's resolution to set up online monitors for your company.
You can choose social-media dashboards or keyword-alert services. There are paid dashboards such as Radian6 and ObjectiveMarketer as well as free service sites Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. These dashboards not only allow you to monitor but participate in live conversations.
If you haven’t set up Google monitors yet, they're free. Go to www.google.com/alerts.
10. Presentation Platforms: As teleseminars become overused and tired, interactive web seminar platforms will step in to fill that market need.
New presentation platforms such as SlideRocket.com and Prezi.com are incorporating easy-to-build presentation tools with social media, live feeds and video. People online want to see the presenter, not just listen over a bridge line.
Choose your presentation platform for 2011 and make sure that it not only streams well but also allows for immediate interaction and cutting-edge presentation tools.
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Comments:
When a paid membership is being purchased, the information collected should be limited to payment information and an email address. There is never a reason for players to give out their social security numbers or more substantial personal information.
Add Twigmore.com to the list of new "check-in" apps. Twigmore is really cool because it allows you to see not only friends check-ins, but friends of friends- so it's a better recommendation than an anonymous one. Check it out...
Quite often people subscribe to your text marketing. And right now I'm subscribed to 5 different companies and haven't felt bombarded or taken advantage of. There are guidelines. Look at BoomText.com for example. They do a great job of marketing their services and teaching their clients. One last thought, you can add your phone to a do not contact list and people can't just add you to their lists.
The trends discussed also offer tremendous workplace potential. Creative minds will find ways to integrate and adapt location-based marketing, Social Media dashboards and live video platforms to facilitate knowledge sharing, employee engagement, support virtual teams and telecommuters and create an environment of transparency, empowerment and break down barriers to change.
I couldn't agree more. My jaw dropped when I heard this... I already get these from my provider and it's already too much.
Great list! I would also add to your list: Social Commerce. I believe more brand will use the social media plateforms to sell directly to their customers.
A great list of marketing strategies. I wonder though what people's general opinion of point number 3 - text campaigns is? I don't know if I would feel comfortable in doing this. It reminds me of the companies who continually send me information I didn't ask for via fax. In fact, at the end of last year, I was receiving so many spam faxes that I disconnected it - it drove me nuts! I think this would become just as annoying if companies (who have my mobile phone number on file) started text messaging me their promotional material. I wonder if other people feel the same way?
Awesome article Starr.I am one who just began to take social media seriously.The tools and the incredible contacts I am connecting with,2011 will catapult my business....
Wow this is a great article. I really loved it. It's crazy how quickly technology changes and how difficult it is to keep up. I really loved your list of resources and websites to help us with these social media trends. I used this article to evaluate my own small business on our blog, Confessions of a Printer, at blog.selectgp.com. This was really beneficial. Keep up the good work! -Jennifer
I agree with most of your pics. But I would say that next year should be a good year for Word Press. Adobe needs to watch out. I will share this on my fan page. http://goo.gl/FwkWy
wordpress and plugins? really
A good list - the introduction to Prezi made checking out 10 links worth it - what amazing presentation software!
In 2007 I was teaching email marketing and the power of social media. People were still looking at me like 'a deer in the headlight'. We sometimes forget that the active community that uses this for daily personal and business still the minority, but the evolution continues to be a revolution. Thanks for your insights and all your smarts!
I too am excited about many of the trends mentioned and think the integration of Twitter TV as a realtime interaction between online fans and offline fans at events will be huge and picked up by more brands as a key marketing method. Plus video - businesses will soon start to see the value in the power of video as a form of communication, exposure and a universal platform that transcends language barriers. I wrote my top 10 predictions for 2011 including technology based perspectives here http://www.thetop10blog.com/10-social-media-trend-predictions-for-2011/ Thanks Starr Natalie
The shopping network isn't just for TV any more I have watched several live product launches through UStream where you can talk live with other people and see how many people are tuned in to the program. Podcasting is still emerging but it also coupled with live video services where people are producing more and more. As for reviews, absolutely people want to hear other peoples experiences not just product pitches and chalked up testimonials. I found this post useful because you shared some tools I wasn't aware of. Thank you.
I'm using ComF5 for video marketing and LOVE it!
Great article but I think the title is a little misleading. I wouldn't consider The Move to Higher Bandwidth (4G), Text Campaigns or Presentation Platforms Social Media. But I agree they are trends to look out for in 2011 and all marketers should seriously consider these interactive marketing enhancements/tactics when planning for next year. Happy Holidays!
Wordpress is a solid option for many, however I can't agree with the idea that everyone should switch over to it. The tech used to power any businesses site should be selected after knowing what the business needs their site to do. If everyone follows with Wordpress(or any othe system) blindly many people will end up in a square peg round hole scenario.
I love your list. I wish someone can invent that perfect tool that will take away the stress from social media, where we can focus more on meaningful conversations than simply shouting out loud our stuff on the social Web. Cheers!!
very interesting/informative article...will implement and research...now i need a team
The problem with Wordpress is that it is only good as far as content is concerned. If you want to go easy and stay with freeware, but still create an online experience for your clients. Then programs like Joomla are the answer. You can work with great working modules fro being creative, but you can also be search engine friendly. I built 2 sites in 2 weeks with joomla and both were indexed by google (domains and articles) before I was finished with the sites. View www.marketing-architects.co.za and www.reddressmarketing.co.za to see the quality of the sites.
thank you for this wonderful post, thinking ahead puts you ahead of your competitors,
Good, well thought-out list. Wordpress is already our CMS of choice: http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/blog/why-wordpress-is-our-cms-of-choice/
We look forward to using all of these features/ideas. We do our best to stay up to date with technology.
Great post! Thanks for thinking of Viddler!
Wow Starr! What a great article on 2011 Social media trends! It will be interesting to see how young entrepreneurs especially will capitalize on the trends to grow business!
Ohhhh- Group buying- your turn to write an article on that- great idea. - Starr Hall
Great article Starr. One I think you missed is group buying, but there are certainly a lot of tools for small business owners to take advantage of each of these trends.