Social media predictions 2009
The uber bright, very inspiring former Forrester analyst, Peter Kim has aggregated a list of 2009 predictions from 14 of the brightest and best social media thought leaders out there and has produced a really amazing year-end artifact in the form of a downloadable free PDF. Read it, enjoy it and look forward to 2009.
Here’s what just a few are thinking:
“Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation.” Pete Blackshaw
“Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn’t come the way people thought it would.” Chris Brogan
“The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media.” Todd Defren
“Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball.” Ann Handley
“These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them.” Scott Monty
“The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies.” Jeremiah Owyang
“Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return.” Andy Sernovitz
“Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter.”Greg Verdino
There are some emerging trends that become apparent as you read through the predictions these are our outakes:
Perhaps 2009 will be more measured…
Firstly and it’s the one that keeps us up at night – measurement! The lack of simplified and unified measurement criteria has been a major barrier and the stock ‘marketing mix model’ as used by mega brands is too complicated and too expensive. Once we can measure effectively we’ll we start tackling social media as a stand alone channel and not as an add on to integrated campaigns.
Perhaps 2009 will be more business like…
In the last week of this year we’re implementing a private social network for one of our lovely B2B clients. ‘Borrowing’ from traditional C2C social network methodologies. We’ve also seen social media becoming a highly effective medium for recruitment campaigns. After all, business people are people, right?
Perhaps 2009 will be more relevant…
Mass participation will continue its exceptional growth, while experienced users will become more refined and filter the noise to increased relevance. Wev loved Greg Verdinos statement that “Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter.”
Perhaps Google will buy Twitter…
Twitter the single-most useful communications software and social utility in recent times will finally get its shit together.
It all comes around again…
Social media specific agencies will go through what ‘digital’ agencies went through a few years back. By this we mean that integrated agencies (us) are adding social media channels as a mandatory. Of course, there will always going to be fabulous niche agencies. However, in the current economic climate that demands ROI the integrated approach can work so much harder. We expect to see social media agencies become integrated ones and plenty of interesting mergers and acquisitions.
Tags: 2009, Inspiring, Investment, James, Social Media