2011 brought many memorable moments for Social Media, including the launch of Google +, the Facebook timeline, the sad death of Steve Jobs and of course, Charlie Sheen taking 25 hours and 17 minutes to break the Guinness world record of "Fastest Time to Reach One Million Followers" on Twitter.
Some amazing numbers have emerged in 2011 too:
• Facebook reached 800 million global active users
• Twitter now has over 300 million users
• LinkedIn recently surpassed 135 million
• Google+ has quickly climbed to 150 million active users
• 50% of social network users are connected to brands
So, with the last point in mind, my team & I at social media agency 4Ps Marketing have been holding various brainstorm sessions this month & have devised a brief outlook for Social Media marketing in 2012. We believe that 2012 is going to be the year of integration. Social Media will be integrated in to brands' traditional marketing, into strategy, PR and budgets more than ever. Some more specific examples include:
Google's 'Search Plus Your World
As a result of Google's new features online communities will be closer than ever before. In case you're unaware of this new search update; the new features bring personal results, largely from the Google+ network, into your main search results. People, Pages, and Profiles are also fully integrated in search results - bringing communities closer together and giving branded content more chance of going viral...
Everyone at the agency (Especially our SEO teams) is very excited to see how the new developments take off; the main benefit will be to enhance website rankings through quality social content.
Social analytics and Return on Investment
With brands spending more on Social Media marketing, they will be expecting more evidence of ROI with 'likes' and 'followers' no longer being enough to satisfy. This has already become evident with the addition of new Facebook insights, LinkedIn insights, analytics from tracking on URL shortening tools and many more.
We predict that social metrics via tracking activity on Social Media platforms will be much more in demand as companies invest more. Tracking this data will allow companies to determine profitable patterns, get a more accurate view of their audience and what material affects onsite traffic and sales.
Integrated Advertising
We have already started seeing how brands are using print adverts to drive customers to their Twitter and Facebook pages. This shows how important brands consider them to be. Hashtags have been appearing during TV shows encouraging you to join in the conversation. Brands have been driving customers off their website onto their Facebook page to get a discount or offer. Digital ads off and on Social Media platforms will provide links to the pages and related offers. We believe that we will be seeing increasingly more of this type of cross marketing integration.
Development of 'social' advertising
Advertising on Social Media sites will continue to grow in 2012. Nielsen's Global Online Consumer Survey revealed that 90% of consumers on-line trust recommendations from people that they know, with 70% trusting the opinions posted online by unknown users. With these sorts of facts emerging, the platforms themselves will continue to make their advertising more targeted, varied and therefore more effective to suit all budgets.
In all, it is clear that this is going to be an eventful year for Social Media and I'll certainly be pushing my team to continually take our strategies out of the box & to the next level of creativity.
