Whilst there are around four-five major social networks that most people belong to right now - Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Myspace - there are always more start-ups raising their hands and doing something innovative as a means of vying for our attention. Whether it's a branding activity like Lady Gaga's Little Monsters social network, or a smart new social network which is only just starting to emerge into the mainstream like Pinterest, people now have more choice than ever before when it comes to social media.
My question is, does the current crop of digital natives (those most active on social networks) care? Are they put off by the choice, or do they thrive on it? Will they flock to whichever networks fit the bill there and then, or are they more likely to stay where their friends are?
The term social media in itself indicates that social networking activity needs to be exactly that - social. This would of course lead us to the conclusion that most people will probably flock to the network where most of their extended contacts are. However, there is a growing integration between networks, facilitated by ongoing improvements in the features of each one which means activity on one network can be seen across multiple others.
This obviously adds value for consumers, but is only one step of the journey. What we could see soon is social networks facilitating interactions on other networks, thus enabling users to interact across as many networks as they like whilst staying within the one they prefer; for example, if you want to respond to tweets through Facebook, or comment on a picture in Pinterest from Google+. This is something that ReadWriteWeb touched on a while ago, but it could still be coming should user behavior demand it.
The slight resurgence of Myspace (which grew by 1 million users in January) shows that many social networkers are open to new content and features from older networks, whilst also illustrating that it may be easier than first thought for social networks to come back from the dead, so long as the right innovation is there to provide a new angle when competing for users' attention. However, the key theme that remains is that of engagement - users need a reason to visit a network frequently.
As such, it's vital that each network continues to innovate and whilst this lies in part with new functionality, this will also lead to some networks adding integration levels that would make social networking across multiple sites easier for the user. Segregation would mean users risk becoming siloed, which isn't good for the networks, let alone the users. From the marketing perspective of digital PR and social media agencies, these possibilities could be pivotal in the ongoing amplification of messaging in social media.
Either way the future most certainly lies with integration - we can see that Facebook has allowed the integration of content from some other networks for some time (and vice versa), but this is only one way at present.
Changing this could be crucial to the growth of social media moving forward.