2. WHAT IS THE FUTURE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA?
• The future of social media is my students, myself, and you….
• Each of my students (and you the reader) have created personal digital brands via
blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and/or Pinterest. As we all leave our digital
footprints, we are not only representing ourselves, we are representing the brands
we work for and the brands we „talk‟ about via social. Likewise, the individuals
that make up brands are creating engaged company personas with both
personality and transparency. These folks are the future of social media.
3. TRIBES
• I believe the future of social media can be seen by looking to the past. Humans by
nature are social creatures, however we have spent years relying on mass
media. As time has passed, we are now relying less on mass media and more on
our peers: we are once again turning to one another. Consider your friends on
Facebook or those you follow on Twitter. Via social, I have surrounded myself with
like minded people that I can have a symbiotic relationship with. Many of the
folks I follow on Twitter I follow because I can learn from them and I value the
content they produce.
4. RELEVANCY
• Relevant connections, content, and communications will remain increasingly
important in order to cancel out the “noise”. As consumers continue to be
bombarded with tweets, status updates, mobile marketing messages and the like,
it will be paramount for these communications to be relevant, timely, and
personalized. This is true for the business as well. I see the future of social
including smaller more niche social groups organized by brands to further identify
consumer needs, research, and for crowdsourcing purposes.
5. SOCIAL CRM
• If your business is on a social platform and engaging, good for you. If you are not
utilizing it to facilitate customer service, shame on you. Obviously, this will take
some planning on your part to prepare staff and get processes in place for
customer service inquiries. Nevertheless, the benefits far outweigh the costs in
this situation. Consider the company who is “on Twitter” and ignores customer
inquiries made via tweets. This is the equivalent of having a customer at your
business, asking you a question (with a store full of other customers and potential
customers) while you stand there not listening with your hands covering your
ears. Potentially disastrous in real life; it would be online as well.
6. SOMO
• By far the biggest and most exciting area of social will most likely be SoMo (social
mobile). Mobile phones have become an every day item that are utilized multiple
times throughout the day. Smartphones hold more information on the user than
ever before; we rely on them to remind us of doctors appointments, to take and
store photos, to stay in contact with our friends and family, to do searches, and to
sometimes even make phone calls. New and exciting possibilities abound
surrounding smart phones and equipping them to better know the user, anticipate
needs, and meet those needs. However, with more people using smart phones
as their primary tool for Internet searches, businesses will need to make changes
to webpages and more to accommodate slower connections and/or smaller
screens.
7. INTEGRATION
• Mass media and social media will become more integrated across devices (such
as laptop, tablets, smart phones) and platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn) to offer more relevant and personalized experiences. Similarly, we will
also see further integration with local and SoMo: SoLoMo. Consumers will utilize
social media via mobile technology to include point of purchase and point of
consumption.
8. REFERENCE
Article : Rogers J. (December 10, 2012). The Future of Social Media in 2013: Six
Points to Consider. Available:
http://socialmediatoday.com/nealschaffer/1067826/future-social-media-2013-six-
points-consider. Last accessed 31/01/2013.
