As 2011 was coming to a close, the team at Spring Creek Group was already running headlong into 2012. This next year will be an incredible time in digital media, that's a given. This deck takes a look at the coming trends and how they will impact consumers and marketers alike in 2012.

1. Social Marketing
2011 Year in Review + 2012 Trends

2. 2011 was another eventful year in the social
marketing space. As the landscape matured,
we saw more consolidation, new innovation,
and better integration. We’ve compiled a
summary of highlights to help put it all into
perspective.
In addition, we’ve shared our predictions
about how the world of social marketing will
evolve in 2012. Please reach out to us on
Facebook, Twitter, or via our blog and let us
know your thoughts.
Clay McDaniel
Managing Director
Spring Creek Group
Spring Creek Group is a Seattle-based social marketing agency that works
with some of the world’s leading global brands. It operates as a subsidiary
of Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands Audience Platform division.

3. What Happened Over the Past Year?

4. 2011 in
Facebook Broadened Google Bet Big on Social
Hindsight Sharing Options
Services Began to The Daily Deals Space Social-Local-Mobile
Consolidate Evolved Functionality Improved
Tumblr’s Popularity Big Brands Social Entertainment
Soared Embraced Gamification Services Made Their Mark

5. Facebook Broadened Sharing Options
and Deepened Analytics
At Facebook’s f8 developer conference in September, the company
announced a broad set of changes that could boost sharing and improve the
quality of information people push through the network, making it even
more valuable as an advertising medium. Facebook’s Open Graph system will
let users share what they listen to, watch, read, eat, and more. See the
Search Engine Watch f8 recap for details.

6. Google Bet Big
on Social
Launched in mid-2011, Google+
surged to 25 million unique
global visitors and did so faster
than any other social network. It
took Facebook 36 months and
Twitter 33 months to recruit as
many users.
At present, Google+ has 65
million global visitors, comprising
5 percent of social network users
worldwide. For more info, check
out comScore’s “Top 10 Need-to-
Knows” report.

7. Services Began to Consolidate
In December 2011, Facebook confirmed its acquisition of location-based
social network Gowalla, previously a Foursquare competitor. This is just one
of the strategic moves Facebook is making as it gears up for a potential IPO in
2012.
Earlier this year, enterprise CRM software and cloud computing company
Salesforce acquired social media monitoring platform Radian6, signaling
further integration between the two service categories.

8. The Daily Deals
Space Evolved
Facebook and Yelp set out to
compete with Groupon, but both
companies have since stepped away
from daily deals. As CNET
reports, there are at least 600
players oversaturating the market.
The space is now evolving to serve
narrower niches. For example, Gilt
City, Bloomspot, and iDeeli are
specializing in “members only”
discounts on high-end luxury
goods, while Gaypon offers deals
from gay-friendly businesses.

9. Social-Local-Mobile (aka SoLoMo)
Functionality Improved
Foursquare now has over 15 million users and more than 600,000
participating merchants. In an interview with the Wall Street
Journal, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley said the service is no longer just for
checking in. The company is increasing its breadth of location-based services
to help users discover nearby businesses and deals, making it more of a
“recommendation engine.” But Foursquare is facing fierce competition
following Facebook’s acquisition of Gowalla; the Gowalla crew will
reportedly join Facebook’s design and engineering team in January 2012.

10. Tumblr’s Popularity
Soared
According to NM Incite, a
Nielsen/McKinsey Company,
Tumblr nearly tripled its U.S.
audience over the last year.
It’s now the 8th largest site
among the top U.S. social
networks and blogs.
Tumblr is also a popular
conversation topic. On
average, it generates more
than 20,000 messages and
links to the site per day,
fueling its viral growth.

11. Big Brands Embraced Gamification
Forrester defines gamification as “the insertion of game dynamics and
mechanics into non-game activities to drive a desired behavior.” Coca-Cola is
using game mechanics to drive brand engagement with its Freestyle
campaign, which invites consumers to create their own unique flavor
combinations. The campaign includes a Facebook app that simulates the real-
life experience – complete with sound effects – and allows users to share
their creations with friends.

12. Social Entertainment Services Made Their Mark
In 2011, some TV networks partnered with app companies, some developed
their own proprietary apps, and some did both. GetGlue is a leader in the
space, with over 1 million users and relationships with more than 35 TV
networks. Miso, a GetGlue competitor, enables developers to create social TV
experiences. And NBC and VH1 have created their own apps that curate the
social stream for various programs. See the eMarketer “Socializing the TV
Experience” report for more info.

13. What’s Next?

14. 2012 Companies Will Increase Social CRM Will Be
Predictions Investments in Social Adopted More Broadly
Sharing Will Become Influencer Targeting Will SoLoMo Will Enhance
Second Nature Evolve Product Experiences
Brands Will Become Entertainment and Social QR and AR Will Further
More Playful Will Continue to Merge Integrate with Social

15. Companies Will Increase Investments in Social
According to a 2011 study from the University of Massachusetts at
Dartmouth, the majority of the Fortune 500 companies have incorporated
social media across multiple channels (blogs – 91 percent, Twitter – 62
percent or Facebook – 56 percent) into their marketing mix. The August 2011
CMO Survey reported that social budgets have increased by approximately 10
percent to support additional community managers, content services, and
social media tools.

16. Social CRM Will Be Adopted More Broadly
Gartner forecasts over $1 billion in revenue for the social customer relationship
management (sCRM) market for 2012, up from approximately $625 million in
2010. As companies adopt sCRM, they’ll gain a better understanding of their
customer base, which will contribute to higher ROI.

17. Sharing Will Become
Second Nature
In June 2011, Facebook reported that
its users were publicly sharing
approximately 4 billion status
updates, images, etc. per day.
According to Zuckerberg’s Law of
Social Sharing, users could pass along
8 billion pieces of content in 2012.
How will this content be shared?
More than likely, via mobile. AddThis
reported that, in 2011, social media
users did six times more sharing via
mobile devices than they did in 2010.

18. Influencer Targeting Will Evolve
According to McKinsey & Co., 20 to 50 percent of purchases involve a peer
recommendation. Algorithm-based influence score providers like Klout and
PeerIndex aim to capitalize on this trend, though their methodology has faced
criticism from some corners of the industry. The key for marketers in 2012 will
be to focus on both quantitative and qualitative data, and to recognize that
volume is not the only measure of influence.

19. SoLoMo Will Enhance Product Experiences
According to Forrester Research, although just 5 percent of Americans regularly
use services like Foursquare, location is the future of mobile. That’s because
location will no longer be considered a service, like maps or navigation, but rather
an invisible enabler of new product experiences.

20. Brands Will Become
More Playful
Gartner projects that 20
percent of Global 2000
organizations will deploy a
gamified application in 2012.
This number will exceed 70
percent by 2014.
Zynga is the leader in social
gaming, thanks in large part to
the popularity of FarmVille and
Zynga’s other Facebook-hosted
offerings (Pivot Conference
“State of Social Marketing”
report).

21. Entertainment and Social Will Continue to Merge
43 percent of American adults who use the internet say they have gone online
or used social media to comment, post, watch, or read something about a
television show or program. According to Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer
principal analyst, “For the networks, social media may be one of the last best
ways to bring viewers back together again.” See the eMarketer “Socializing the
TV Experience” report for additional details.

22. QR Codes and Augmented
Reality (AR) Will Further
Integrate with Social
U.K.-based Juniper Research predicts
annual downloads of AR apps worldwide
will climb to 1.4 billion by 2015, up from
just over 11 million in 2010.
Mobile barcode reading solution provider
3GVision reports the use of QR codes is
also on the rise, with a 20 percent increase
from Q2 to Q3 2011. Ad Age shares
guidance on how to successfully leverage
QR codes.

23. Spring Creek Group is a frequent contributor to social media and marketing
industry publications. Recent articles can be found in our newsroom. For
media inquiries, please contact press@springcreekgroup.com.

24. Sources
Azhar, Azeem. "The New Marketing Model: Peer Index Marketing." GigaOm, August 13, 2011.
http://gigaom.com/2011/08/13/the-new-marketing-model-peer-index-marketing.
Barnes, Nora Ganim and Justina Andonian. "The 2011 Fortune 500 and Social Media Adoption:
Have America's Largest Companies Reached a Social Media Plateau?" Center for Marketing
Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 2011.
http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesandresearch/2011fortune500/?sf2654705=1.
comScore. "It's a Social World: Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It's
Headed." December 21, 2011.
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/it_is_a_social_wo
rld_top_10_need-to-knows_about_social_networking.
Cypes, Greg. "Sharing Trends in 2011." AddThis Blog, December 13, 2011.
http://www.addthis.com/blog/2011/12/13/sharing-trends-in-2011/#.TwSpG9QS3rx.

25. Sources
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4971-9A1A-3613E0FDE5F3.html
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Holden, Windsor. "Mobile Augmented Reality to Generate 1.4 billion Downloads by 2015 as Major
Brands and Mobile Developers Embrace the Concept." Juniper Research, February 28, 2011.
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Husson, Thomas. "Mobile Location Becomes Invisible." Forrester Blogs, August 3, 2011.
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Locke, Laura. "What's the Deal with Daily Deals?" CNET, September 12, 2011.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20104683-93/whats-the-deal-with-daily-deals.

26. Sources
Miller, Miranda. "Facebook F8 Wrapup: Timeline, Ticker, GraphRank for Users & Marketers."
Search Engine Watch, September 22, 2011.
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Pivot. "The State of Social Marketing 2011 - 2012." Pivot Conference, December 2011.
http://2012.pivotcon.com.

27. Sources
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