10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010
This time last year, I wrote about the 10 ways social media will change 2009, and while all predictions have materialized or are on their way, it has only become clear in recent months how significant of a change we've seen this year. 2009 will go down as the year in which the shroud of uncertainty was lifted off of social media and mainstream adoption began at the speed of light. Barack Obama's campaign proved that social media can mobilize millions into action, and Iran's election protests demonstrated its importance to the freedom of speech.
This guest post was written by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com - a boutique consultancy focusing on helping companies succeed. Ravit authors a blog at www.ravitlichtenberg.com.
Today, it is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month -- 70% of whom are outside the US -- and it accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic, according to Pew nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter or some other service to check status messages, and 94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad -- it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic.
So what will social Web bring next? What will "being connected" mean? What will the next experience be for the 2 two billion people who are connected to the Internet? Here are 10 ways what we've called social media will evolve in 2010.
Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies
By this time next year, social media will no longer be "social media" -- it will be an integrated, unquestionable component of your online and offline experience. Last year we spoke of cross-platform integration across media sites. Open APIs and OpenID made that possible, and even LinkedIn announced last month that it too will finally open its APIs. 2010 will be about integration and a single, cohesive experience across platforms as well as across products and devices -- Web, mobile, TV, and video -- will become near-inseparable experiences.
Users will access content from any device or platform, co-create and mashup their photos, videos and text with traditional content while interacting with each other. Publishers will create new kinds of content for the connected world, and the last years' lull in good entertainment will finally be lifted. This trend will cut across all of our activities -- from playing games to shopping to emailing and texting -- nothing will be lost; everything we do will be gathered and streamed together, allowing people to view their world of activities as if it were projected in front of them, open to change, review and input at any point in time from any device or online tool.
Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology
With Web technology maturing and the near-elimination of previous barriers such as closed platforms and discrete logins, companies will now look to innovate the way they use existing technology, rather than focus on technology enhancements themselves. We will see a move to leverage existing assets -- content and capabilities -- in new ways, turning information to wisdom and insight to action. Whereas once user research required focus groups and usability tests, companies will utilize the Web's capabilities to achieve the same. Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people's attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.
Mobile Will Take Center Stage
Worldwide, the iPhone alone accounts for about 33% of mobile web traffic and IDC predicts the number of mobile web users will hit one billion by 2010. As the technological barriers come down, people will increasingly use their phones on-the-go to access social networks, search, read content and find location-based information. Our phones will be used as a central hub and beacon -- enabling a slew of new capabilities and experiences.
Expect an Intense Battle As People and Companies Look To Own Their Own Content
2009 marked the year of open Web, and divergence of content, making content available anywhere, anytime, by anyone and to everyone; it was the year content exploded across the web, platforms and devices. The issue Google solved so magically -- content find-ability -- will become all but moot in the coming years. Instead, content relevance and quality will become the key focus. In 2010 we will start to see convergence as companies take measures to own their own content, its location and its cost. Last month, Rupert Murdoch announced he may opt News Corp out of Google, instructing it to de-index its publications from the search engine and giving exclusive rights to Bing for a fee. This means that content publishers will be able to determine where they make their content available and at what cost.
With the growth of user generated content and the dwindling relevance of search results, people will gradually shift their trust from large aggregators like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and move to searching and finding content at specific locations and, eventually, creating and integrating their own content hub into the rest of their personal digital experience. "People don't realize that everything they do -- on Facebook, Ning, Google and with their credit cards -- is being collected, tracked, analyzed, owned and monetized by these companies who provide (so-called) free services. It's not a healthy model." Says John Faber, COO of af83, a Drupal development house and co-founder of the upcoming DrupalCon.
Enterprises Will Shape the Next Generation of What We've Called "Social Media"
It was easy to forget that enterprises and large institutions are the originators of some of social media's pillars: listservs, forums, intranets and collaboration tools. As social media became a public domain, enterprises have been cautious participants, predominantly in the product space, with few visionary leaders like Zappos, IBM and Dell. But cautionary they are no more. With a reported average of 25% increase in funds allocation toward social media activities, in 2010 we will see a surge in adoption of social media across product, services and solutions companies.
Having the need and the funds, enterprises will determine the next generation of social experiences. They will push enhancements that meet their needs, specifically around monitoring, automation, alignment with the sales cycle and integration with existing systems, expanding social "media" to encompass the ecosystem of social computing across solutions, and making them actionable for the company. Jive, blueKiwi, Remindo and Sharepoint support companies internally. Most recently, Salesforce.com released Chatter, designed to turn the corporation, and CRM, social. With its APIs opening later this year, "Chatter can become a new layer over its Force platform, already being used by 68,000 customers, enabling companies and developers to leverage the Salesforce infrastructure in a secure environment," said Bruce Francis, VP corporate strategy Salesforce.com.
Next page: ROI Will Be Measured -- and It Will Matter
Learn more about social media managment from experts -- check out the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management. It highlights the hottest issues in online community management (Download a free sample of the document here), and you get access to a password protected online aggregator that automatically serves up the most-talked about blog posts concerning community management each day -- a great resource for ongoing professional development.
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Some great insights here. 2010 will be the end of the beginning for social media. The future, as you indicated, will be marked by seemless integration across the full spectrum of digital communications. Location aware apps will take off in 2010, as will augmented reality, driven, I predict, by marketers and communicators looking for the next big thing. Great post!
Thanks for posting... it's exciting to see how quickly social media is changing society. As Social Media continues rapidly changing both the online and offline environment, it will be far less challenging to show the small to medium sized businesses the importance of embracing this change.
I agree with Andrew. We're going to be seeing some really cool things via Social Media and the party is just getting started!
The forces at play here are intriguing, no? Social web is a platform and attitude behind which is a full spectrum of philosophies about what should take center-stage.
Is there an inherent tug-o-war between those wanting to exploit and those merely wishing to connect? Will the psychographic experts hound us and chase us down until we are caught by the enterprising enterprises??
Is the social web the new platform for serving cleverly disguised spam? Mmm... mashups and gravy! My favorite ;-)
Great insights and examples in this article! Will be very exciting to see how things evolve next year, especially as social media become less about buzz and more about creating results.
Mashups and gravy indeed. Our lives daily lives are a tug 'o war between those wanting to exploit and connect, so I'm sure the online space will be too.
Also, I agree that mobile will take center stage. Along that will come the chance of making a social media faux pas at any turn -- for all your friends, colleagues and enemies to see. Ha! My inbox will be flooded.
Yours,
Ms. Meme
Who knew social media would become so mainstream in such a short time frame. Great article and examples.
2010: The year we make (social) contact. Indeed, enterprises are on the cusp of diving deep into social and reshaping it to suit business goals. One way of doing so is to leverage a B2B social network and to measure customer and partner communications ROI across all channels.
It will be interesting to see how social media plays out a role in the Congressional elections coming up next fall.
Will those who used it extensively to support Obama hold him accountable to the promises he made and has ignored by putting the opposition into Congressional seats?
Ah! Great to see that we made the list :)
-Prateek, for the people at Remindo (www.remindo.com)
À lire, très intéressant!
The event in Copenhagen on global warming that Obama attended was covered by many journalists. These journalist were answering live questions on their social media accounts. I can already see some cool changes and I can't wait for what else will be integrated with social media. By becoming informed and connected it is and will change the world.
Sharon Baumeyer
Thoughts.com
I think a lot of these trends bode well for women in the workplace. As companies become comfortable with incorporating social media tools into their infrastructure, employees should be able to have more flexible employment where they will be judged on productivity not face time. Those who do well (male or female) will be the individuals who can combine analytical thinking with creativity.
I for one am very excited about 2010 and the role social media will play in transforming how we interact with product, services and ideas. Seems like it might be the beginning of the migration from search to discovery.
The more we live amongst our networks, the less we will be finding things of interest in a search box. Although, Google's social search experiment is pretty interesting.
Great read, social media will continue to grow as the years go on as internet has went through its evolution so shall social media and social media marketing.
> Facebook [...] accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic
I got to that line then stopped reading.
Please don't post stats that are totally unfounded and inaccurate.
Awesome!
You're fucking high!
Thank you for posting this. I am waiting for a time when I can talk in my own language, finnish, with all people. Automatic translations from any language to any language would change the world.
Very true stuff here. A lot of us are hoping for, and creating these changes right now. I am distributing my film, Self Helpless, using the first ever bittorrent-only release. We have conducted all of our marketing using facebook and twitter. The decision to rely heavily on social networking wasn't really even a decision. This is simply the way to do business.
Nice article. I believe most of the change will be happening in the mobile market... iPhone...Google phone.. there are so many ways to expand and people want to be connected 24-7 no matter where they are. We will see...
Ravit, so glad to see your predictions are becoming an annual thing here at RRW. I love your insights.
One thing I think we need to remind ourselves is just how long social media has been with us really. It seems as though things are moving so quickly now, but for many years there was little movement in this space. On the bleeding edge of innovation things continue to move way too slowly and way too quickly, seemingly all at the same time.
A couple of thoughts:
Many have begun discussing the need for real ROI measurement in social media this year. Although I understand the desire to justify the opportunity with real numbers, I fear that we could end up doing more harm than good if we bring traditional marketing paradigms into this unique space. We did this in the late 90s with online advertising, and it backfired, and I believe it could backfire again. ROI is too shortsighted a metric for social media. We need research that shows how proactive social engagement can maximize the "long-term" value of our customer relationships. Bringing old-school advertising and direct marketing tactics into the social space will prove disastrous. Effective social marketing will likely lie in the cultivation of "social reputation."
The one thing your awesome list didn't mention is how "Social Identity" will change in 2010. We want aggregation. We want portability. We want social search. We want relationship management. We are being encouraged to live "public" and "open" lives by the leading players. All these desires are wrapped up in the problems we still face managing our lives and identities in this rapidly evolving space. Real life is coming to the web. We are all in the process of learning how to "live" online in a way that is comfortable, manageable and rewarding. We have a lot of problems to solve before the Single, Cohesive Experience can come to life. I think Chris Messina is right when he says "Identity is the platform."
Posted by: neteffect.wordpress.com
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December 12, 2009 1:34 PM
I might be inclined to add two additional predictions into your already comprehensive list.
First, crowdsourcing will become even more more prevalent and popular as a means to address some of the more complex challenges you mention. Individuals will continue to provide opinions, but the collective group will begin to prioritize the valuable information and disregard the spam more efficiently to highlight the most beneficial scenarios and relevant alternatives. I have to think Google Wave will have some role to play in this development.
Applications will begin to move from real-time to future time as individuals and groups begin to better coordinate the planning of events and travel with other members of their community. I am thinking future oriented social applications like Plancast and travel itinerary tools like TripIt will gain popularity and functionality to better coordinate who will be where when. It would also not be to early to see a mashup with Foursquare to validate fulfillment of those plans and perhaps penalize persons who stand-up the others by failing to show-up.
I can anticipate an interesting year with at least one surprise app or tool to lurch into the collective stream of consciousness and advance the way we integrate social media into our lives.
This is so cool!
Imagine that a year ago people were being banned at work for facebooking and now there are people as representatives of companies on facebook.
I love how much this has evolved since I got online a few years ago and being able to flow with the change will keep people ahead of the trend instead of just getting on board because everyone else has.
Thanks for the article I can't wait to see your predictions for 2011.. next year!
Great article and some good insights into the social world ahead of us. Its really good to see where this space is heading, as being on the Australian west coast town of Perth, we are only just scratching the surface of what Social Media can do. Companies are still very nervous to get their hands dirty in the Social Playpen, but with the insights and the fact that it really can no longer be ignored (take Starbucks with their 5 million fan base on FB) I think the Aussie Social Media scene will explode in 2010!
Thanks for the great article!
Lucinda Callie - SUMO digital, Perth, Australia - twitter.com/sumo_group
Wow, another interesting article about "hot Internet subject". I suppose the biggest issue with Social Media sites is the basic that it relies on "people" to make it interesting. No amount of Apps, Fancy Gui, or tools can remedy that.
Great article! I guess it's time for me to explore more of the world of social media. Thanks for the insights!
Thanks for this, I had recently been reading a lot on how Social Media has peaked and will drop in the upcoming months, but I disagree people are only just seeing the potential and social media is evolving to embrace the potential. I don't think social media should be a sole form of advertising it needs to be complimented with other online and offline techniques.
I'm holding out for the future as some changes Facebook and Twitter are good whereas others aren't it depends on how they take their platforms to how we can use them for personal, business and promotions.
A very well thought out assessment of what the near future holds. Insightful and articulate.
Social media is emerging into a "system" which is obviously disrupting all "systems", internally and externally. It is those who think about innovative ways to use it who will create new markets and a new economic era. If Doc Searls completes his VRM project all things will yet change again.
I'd like others opinion relative to the different "parts" of the system of social media and which part creates the most value systemically. see http://www.relationship-economy.com/?p=8170
This is a very good article. I also think that media changes will take place in the market place with more advances in cell phone technology that matches up with social media. I also hope that one of the bi changes will be that the social media becomes more integrated and cohesive.
http://educationillusions.blogspot.com/
Thank you for the mention. We are honored to be in such good company and mentioned by such change agent influencers. The I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation is living at the nexus of advocacy, healthcare and technology for the youth culture. Please stop by and say hello. Matthew Zachary, Founder/CEO
As social media sites begin to morph into marketing powerhouses, I think it's becoming increasingly important for companies to outsource their social media to a specialist.
Here's some valuable information on outsourcing your social media:
http://www.gatewaybizdev.com/blog/2009/11/outsource-or-internalize-social-media-marketing-gateway%e2%80%99s-b2b-lead-generation-blog/
Great article, there is no doubt that in 2010 people will be more connected and will, as you said be marked by seemless integration accross a full range of digital communications. I think businesses will continue to evolve and adapt to social networking technology. We are already seeing incredible leaps, and when polled businesses are saying they are going to increase their budgetary expenditure on social media in 2010.
There are different kinds of content - some that can be shared and available anywhere, anytime, by anyone and to everyone;". There is other type of content, a private one, that people enter into their profiles on the mass social media network sites, which should remain private if the person entering it chose to do so by clicking the appropriat checkbox. On the other hand, who is to make sure this information was ever private to begin with?
Very fascinating information. Thanks for sharing. It's rather exciting, especially to think that online and offline activities will become more integrated. I also like that there will be more Social Media jobs. However, I don't see women dominating these positions / jobs. I see you use Facebook as the reason that women will have more of the employment, bc there are more women users are FB, but I don't believe FB is a good indicator of your average Social Media site that bussinesses are using. I could be wrong, but businesses are more apt to use Twitter, or use it more frequently, and with more intensity. I don't have the figures to back this up, it is merely what I've seemed to notice from using both platforms of Social Media. There are millions more on FB than Twitter, but FB's use is often to keep in touch with family and friends and to play games. On Twitter people also talk to friends and have fun, of course. But many on Twitter use it to network with others in their mutual field, for business purposes, to get their products noticed, for good PR, to sell, to get their brand out there, to get to know their customers, etc. These are the ones I perceive will be filling the Social Media job positions you are speaking of. And they're on Twitter! And to my knowledge, this group on Twitter is of a greater proportion male. There are many entrepreneurs as well as other professionals on Twitter who are female, but I'm guessing there are a greater number of males. Not that it matters, it just is...
krissy knox :)
connect w me on twitter:
http://twitter.com/iamkrissy
At first glance it seems that social media is democratizing the web, by leveling the playing field. If you have good content, you can get noticed, "dugg," Stumbled, etc. As a very small business with a very small marketing budget, this is great for us, because we can target our narrow audience (fraternities and sororities), and as long as our blog content is valuable and our videos are funny and entertaining (and they will be), we will get people to listen.
However, I recently read an article on TechCrunch about a company that is hired to make videos go viral, and some of the tactics described there are essentially gaming the system. We can't pay a company to do this for us, so again, we're at a disadvantage if a major player moves into our space and simply buys recognition.
I think it will be interesting for us to see how 2010 unfolds with regard to how memes become memes. How many will become popular because someone with a fat wallet wanted them to become popular?
Posted by: spenser.myopenid.com
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December 16, 2009 2:47 PM
hey thanks for the in-depth article. i agree with your points. on a personal level, i begin to experience all the whirlwind of social media integrating into our personal life since i got my latest nokia e72. together with my mobile broadband plan, i have been updating my facebook with alarming regularity, twittering, checking blogs, reading the news, surfing websites like rww, downloading new apps etc etc, all with the convenience of the smartphone in my hand any time any where. life, as we know it will change forever!
I begin to experience all the whirlwind of social media integrating into our personal life since i got my latest nokia e72. together with my mobile broadband plan, i have been updating my face-book with alarming regularity, twittering, checking blogs.On Twitter people also talk to friends and have fun, of course. But many on Twitter use it to network with others in their mutual field
Some great points and the way the internet is moving. How we interface with our social media software will become paramount as well. It has to be easy and user friendly. Especially when our personal handheld device usage is rocketing. Even more and more we will be able to connect with friends and followers every moment of the day.
Chris
Thought this article was very insightful. I strongly agree with the assumptions of the future of Social Media. With "94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools" there is clearly a growing interest here and I feel it is a valuable tool for companies to relate to their customers. Social Medias are in fact being integrated into daily life for many market segments and they are excellent ways to contact and stay in touch with customers to increase brand perception and company traffic.
I work for a company called ShopTab that you might want to check out (http://www.facebook.com/shoptabapp). We saw a huge opportunity for eCommerce business owners who wanted to leverage and monetize their Facebook presence. Facebook ShopTab App allows these business owners the ability to create a shop tab directly on their Facebook fan page.
We feel with the use of personalization through social media sites such as Facebook, companies can continue to build valuable relations through various media vehicles and keep their customers involved and happy.
Thanks,
–Kevin (http://www.twitter.com/shoptab)
Thanks for such an insightful article. It's really amazing me how many companies and firms are finally starting to believe in this idea. Social Media has been around forever, but it just now seems to be making its mark.
Great post. I especially like the comment on ROI. Whether it makes sense or not, companies will be looking to justification. Only overtime will we understand the right metrics to track and follow. I covered the tie between social media and email marketing in my blog post today, http://tinyurl.com/y8jwhen, be sure to read and leave your own thoughts.
Cheers
Actually, many big companies like Microsoft, Coca Cola and Protor and Gamble are using social media now. Some have their own social networking websites for their customers and company employees. Many small businesses are also taking social media up. I think it's one of the best ways to provide value to customers and employees.
Yes, I agree with Kwame| Sociatic.
changing is also in front of me. it might take me a long time to compeletely adapter to the new 2010 social media
Women are generally proved to be better in expressing and soft skills than men.
May be that gets carried to social media too.
Great to see that we made the list :D
I agree with you - the pressure is on to prove ROI, and while it has been difficult to showcase, there is clearly a benefit to marketing through social media services. It's an exciting time as we work together to identify how building a solid brand relationship with consumers on social media services translates to the bottom line. Additionally, I think the fight for privacy will be an interesting one as companies continue to push users to be more open. Hopefully there will be a return to transparency, and a clear value proposition laid out to users who do make their information public.
Social Web sites are all of big bullshit (Myself)
"Today, they are responsible for 85% of all consumer purchases, and many are affluent." The article you quoted this from mentioned this statistic with no source or qualification whatsoever...I'm no statistician but I'm pretty sure this number is highly skewed.
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