Social media dominates the top ten strategic technologies in 2011 according to Gartner, so what are the latest trends in the social media ecosphere?
Why has social media become the rage over the past few years? These days it’s not enough for a brand to have a nice website, you’re not recognized by potential generation Y consumers unless you’re proactively participating in social sites. Online marketing of a more traditional nature continues to grow, but networking on social sites is growing at a much faster pace and the numbers of people subscribing is not falling off.
Marketing is a costly business, and online marketing comes cheap, though not as cheap as social networking, which is absolutely free (aside from time). The marketing strategy is to reach out to your clients and be interactive, and social sites are where young potential customers flock to.
Tweeting takes only a few seconds and facebooking, not more than a few minutes, but the returns are rewarding compared to the time spent. What’s more, these networks are accessible through any Internet enabled device such as phones, computers, notebooks and tablets; which means you can grab people’s attention when they’re mobile as well as when they’re at home.
Social media has been a bastion for sharing but now shopping on social media sites are getting a foot hold. The trend set by social games on Facebook is now on the rise, with shopping websites integrating eCommerce on Facebook pages and micro sites. There are hundreds of brand pages on Facebook. What you could have done earlier was to ‘like’ them, but now you can shop from your social media account and then share your shopping list with friends … share … shop … share … shop. A successful online portal for a business like this relies on “share of click” in lieu of “word of mouth”.
Another trend that is sure to get bigger is to have your micro site on a social media website. This shift is quite evident; a lot of small website owners have moved from micro sites to Facebook pages. The Facebook pages have multiple tabs, notes and links, plus photos, videos and chats with followers. Moving to Facebook provides tools for promotions like the wall where new announcements, offers and messages can be shared; and once someone has been enticed to add the Facebook account as a friend, they get constant re-engagement.
According to Matthew Gain from Edelman Australia, "With a microsite you had to generate media to get people to the site. Then they would arrive, maybe enter a competition, and then disappear. With Facebook, you have an opportunity for an ongoing engagement, because to enter a competition they have to 'like' the page."
Social networking sites are continuing to make their services more useful for users and one feature in particular, location based networking, works really well for small and medium enterprises. By geo-tagging a tweet to cater to local customers, you’re more likely to attract real potential customers. Once more advertisers get on board, more people will search for local tweets advertising specials. This trend is going to become more popular and more specific with branded tweets.
Location based updates will also get a big boost next year with the increasing popularity of apps like Foursquare and forthcoming projects like Facebook places. Foursquare encourages people to explore their local businesses and submit reviews.
Another social media hot cake these days is a suggestion; this is based on what a user is currently doing and following what others are doing. This will help companies in preparing a social graph and target their ads to users accordingly.
"If you are a consumer brand or any major company, there is a whole lot of chatter going on." Nick Holmes from BuzzNumbers says. "You can just sit back and listen passively to conversations, and determine what people are saying."
Although social media advertising campaigns are now widespread, not all businesses have started using it yet. According to a recent survey done by Optus on 380 Australian small and medium businesses (SMBs), only 28% of businesses actually use social media for networking and most have no immediate plans to start. Whilst they may be free to start, unless you know what you’re doing you’re probably tweeting and posting on walls in a void. According to Michael Said of Brand Strategy,"This is the number one marketing opportunity, but only if it's done properly. The three Rs of social media are regular, relevant and remarkable." Like any advertising medium, an online social media campaign is best conducted by professionals. After all, the type of top notch campaign being run in 2010 will be all but obsolete by 2011.
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