Last December I made some predictions about what will happen to social media this year. Now it’s time to see which of the predictions came true and what did I miss. I’ll be grading myself, one point for being spot on, 0.5 points if the trends that are there but not yet very strong, and 0 for a miss.
Here is the original slideshow:
And here’s how it turned out:
1. Social media marketing disappears.
No, not yet. Social media is not yet integral part of marketing. It is still something that is done separately. However we are moving towards more integration.
2. Integrating social media to corporate websites.
Not yet, half way there. More and more corporate websites are displaying social media integration but it’s still on the level of „follow us“ or „like our page“. True integration with real user generated content and personalized experience will take time.
3. More support through social media.
Yes. Response times to social media questions are improving and companies are starting to take that seriously. People report their problems in their channel of choice and expect an answer. This trend will continue until social channels are fully integrated with others.
4. Social CRM will make inroads in larger organizations.
Yes and the trend is continuing. Social data will be added to the CRM systems to find trends in sentiment and individual preferences of customers. Research firm Gartner has stated that the SCRM market grew this year to $1.2 billion, accounting for near 10 percent of all CRM spending.
5. Social media will influence more sales.
Yes and the trend is continuing. Social media integration will allow customers to get real user opinions before making purchase decisions. People depend on peer opinion to make buying decisions.
6. Social commerce on mobile devices.
Yes and the trend is continuing. Mobile commerce is expected to reach 10 billion dollars in 2012 and 31 billion by 2016. It’s time to start an new start-up on this area.
7. Social media budgets will grow.
Yes and the trend is continuing. Most companies will continue to increase their social media budgets. This includes in-house spending on and outsourced services. The spending should grow 2 to 3 times by the end of 2016.
8. Social media advertising will grow.
Yes and the trend is continuing. This is pretty much the same as social media budgets. But as we can see from GM droping Facebook earlier this year, some marketing managers treat them separately. Social media advertising will grow to $10 Billion in 2016.
9. Social media ROI is a must.
Yes/No. More result oriented but still less than half of the marketers measure results from social media. Likes and followers are not results! CMOs worldwide agree they need to measure social media marketing’s contribution to the business in relevant, quantifiable terms.
10. Rise of the branded content.
Yes. Brands need to create content that is good enough to be curated and shared. This trend will continue and blur the lines between advertising and editorial content.
11. Content Curation and Discovery.
Yes/No. Aggregation and content curation are getting more important and brands start filtering information to give value to their customers. However there’s no visible success stories in this field yet.
12. Tabletizing and mobilizing websites.
Yes and the trend is continuing. Mobile broke trough finally. You need a mobile/tablet optimized site if you want to create a good user experience for your customers. It’s a must now!
13. Social gaming will grow and spill over to real world.
No. The initial gold rush of social media games died in 2012. There are people who play and those who don’t. There are now more players than ever, but the activity is in the background, visible to those who are into it. The potential growth of mobile social gaming is still there.
14. Location! Location! Location!
Yes/No. The push for local mobile marketing is ongoing. There’s a huge potential for local information, reviews, coupons, loyalty programs and more. People will be checking for recommendations about nearby restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. However there will still be a few yeas before the local real-time information is seamlessly integrated into our lives.
15. Most social media usage will be on mobile devices.
Surprisingly, not yet. In July 2012 only 38% of US mobile subscribers accessed social networking site or blog on their devices. On the other hand Facebook hit 488 million mobile users earlier this year globally. This means that in some countries mobile social networking is in the range of 80%. In a few years you will always be connected with social media, no matter where you are!
16. Group buying sites will add location based services.
No. I thought that this is a brain dead model. Grow a huge list by offering really cheap deals and then sell that list to businesses to get really cheap deals. Add location targeting and you get profit. Apparently not, maybe it take some time to figure out the business model for this.
17. Interacting with live TV in social media.
Yes. Live TV shows will react to user interactions such as votes, suggestions, etc. TV is going to be everywhere through mobile apps and this trend is growing.
18. News will be social.
Not yet. I thought that news websites will gradually be replaced by applications integrated with social media technology such as Facebook’s Open Graph. This will not happen as fast as I initially predicted. But we’re going down that road as we speak.
19. Mobile apps will become more social.
Yes. All of the successful new mobile apps will be deeply integrated with social networks allowing you to share and engage more than ever before.
20. Your social media footprint will grow.
Yes. Frictionless sharing capabilities and social gestures will make our lives increasingly visible on social networking sites. Always connected, always sharing! If you don’t share, your friends will. Some may rise privacy concerns but most people will ignore the implications and their lives are going to be more open than ever before.
21. Facebook will break the 1 Billion people mark.
Yes. I predicted that Facebook will reach a cool billion users or 1.1 billion even. Well, billion is already there and remaining 100 million come in the next 2-3 months by the end of 2012.
I missed 6 of the 21 predictions by thinking that change will happen faster. This is still only 28,6% better than tossing a coin. 15 of my predictions for this year really happened and this is more than 71%. I will post the new Social Media Marketing Trends for 2013 in December.
Here you go! What do you think will happen in 2013. Please, let us know in the comments.
via dreamgrow.com
Robert Paul Realtor at robert.paul@elliman.com 914-325-5758
