It’s happened; 2010 has hit us square in the face. And while we don’t appear to be commuting in flying cars, going on holiday to the moon or using computers that weigh 1.5 tons there are at least a few things we can talk about that may be realistic predictions for 2010.
Social media was big in 2009. Twitter grew (and then flat lined), Facebook attracted a flock of 35-55 year olds and news was broken before Joe Journalist could say ‘rosebud’.
But what of 2010? What can we expect? Will it actually be, as it’s been predicted every year for the past 10, the year of the mobile? Will Twitter actually make any money? Will the Facebook movie be any worse than it sounds?
We’ve put together some thoughts, based on what we saw in 2009, on what we think might happen in 2010.
Fragmentation and convergence of social media tools
Social media tools will increasingly fragment and move away from their original platforms towards converged tools that enable you to manage a number of different social media platforms.
At the same time, social media tools will continue to converge, combining their individual strengths to better compete with the big players such as Facebook and Twitter.
This will mean there may be more social media tools to pay attention to in 2010 as more exciting features are developed as a result of tie-ins between companies such as Seesmic and Ping.fm.
We may also see more convergence of devices and social media. Millions are already using social media on their Xboxes and Playstations. In 2010 we’ll see more devices enabled to connect with social media platforms.
Mobile and Social Media –
Mobile will, more than ever become the social media lifeline for workers and consumers. 70% of organisations currently ban social networking at work. As a result of this, the mobile web will become important for employees wanting to stay connected to their social accounts.
Mobile social media will increasingly play a part in people’s offline buying decisions. As social media users begin to trust social media more and more, offline buying decisions (electronics, books, restaurants, bars, hotels) will be affected by consumer reviews accessed through the mobile web and geo-location-enabled applications.
Increased spend in social media
The Social Media and Online PR Report, published by Econsultancy in association with bigmouthmedia revealed that companies planning to increase spend in social media in 2010 but are currently struggling to find time and resources to manage their activity.
This means that there will be more competition for the audience’s attention online. It will no longer be enough just to be active on Twitter and Facebook providing customer support. Companies will need to go the extra mile to distinguish themselves from competitors.
Real time search
Google launched real time search in December (after being pipped to the post by Bing). This means that when you search for something like “UK Snow” to see just how bad Londoners are at coping with the white fluffy stuff, you’ll see people’s conversations about UK snow on Twitter.
As real time search results increasingly become integrated in search engine results pages (SERPs), it will be more important to have strategies in place for an official presence on real time social media tools such as Twitter and Friend Feed.
With companies spending money on search engine optimisation, it makes sense that if Twitter conversation is appearing in the first page SERP, then social media optimisation should be just as important.
Whatever 2010 brings for us, what you can be sure of is that tie dye is on its way back and all the kids will be text messaging and searching the interwebs with their mobile iTelephones. You heard it here first folks.
Thanks to @AndrewGirdwood for some of his thoughts that contributed to this post.
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- How to measure social media not just the buzz….
- Reporting on Mumbai: Twitter and social media leading the way
- Social media, ROI and the importance of influence
- Facebook testing real time search
- Everyone makes social media mistakes, even Habitat.
