5 Predictions on The Future of Social Media
July 28, 2008
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All we do here at Ignite Social Media is social media marketing. So we watch it carefully, looking for trends, what’s coming next, what’s likely to bubble up. And it’s got me thinking. I believe that social media is in its infancy. Not everybody does.
But I’m quite sure we don’t have it all figured out yet. FriendFeed is a perfect example. What could be an interesting utility is a lengthy stream of noise so far. The design is not very friendly. That’s just one example.
So, based on the assumption that we have a long way to go, here are 5 predictions on the future of social media, ranked from shortest time horizon to longest.
1) Ratings will become an expectation. This one is really short-term. I regularly talk to large brands, with deep, consumer-facing websites that don’t have rating systems installed. Consumers who are shopping online are shortly going to expect it. The ROI of adding ratings to e-commerce sites is well-established. I believe that we’re about to go beyond ROI for sites with ratings. Shoppers will actually penalize sites that don’t have consumer rating systems installed by shopping elsewhere.
2) Content aggregation will boom. In the early days of social media marketing, people wanted to do “sexy” things. Viral video contests. Build “our own” social network. But content is king, right? And searching for content takes a lot of time. More and more corporate types are going to figure out that they can benefit from investing in content aggregation. Companies are spending millions creating mediocre stuff with their name on it. For a fraction of that, they could aggregate the most important content in their field, provide a valuable service, and get tremendous brand equity.
3) New tools will replace some of the first movers. Twitter’s problems are well documented, but they are not the only social tool to have it only half-right. (I mentioned FriendFeed, but most Ning-based social networks and even Google Reader, among others, could be much better.) Some of these will get fixed, but most likely the next generation of tools will be better, and we’ll get new social media buzzwords. Could Twitter be the Friendster of microblogging? Quite possibly.
4) Social networks become portable. Looking out a bit further on the horizon, I see social networks becoming portable. Open Social is a good start, but I think (hope?) it’s going to go much further than that. Perhaps building on Open Social, someone will build a persona utility that lets you travel easily among the social networks without re-friending everyone. The power of the network becomes the utility of the network. LinkedIn for jobs, MySpace for entertainment, Facebook for friendship updates, etc.
5) Virtual worlds gain traction. I wrote a long time ago the reasons that Second Life will never work for social media marketing. But virtual worlds aren’t going anywhere. Second Life continues to grow slowly, but my children have grown up in a world where Webkinz and Club Penguin are normal. I’m sure it won’t be Second Life that we’re all logging into, but we’ll be bouncing into and out of virtual worlds before too long. It will improve the user experience and increase sales, so it will happen. Likely the longest time horizon on my short list here, but I’m confident in it.
Let’s add to this list together. What do you think? What should number 6, 7, 8 be?? What’s the future of the social media agency?
Which way is this bus heading? Either way, I’m enjoying the ride so far.
Comments
22 Responses to “5 Predictions on The Future of Social Media”
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Each major organization will have a social media “czar” : http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/40963 from shiva singh
I wish I’d seen the MarketingSherpa article prior to writing my own on the topic at Practical Ecommerce. I wholeheartedly agree, ratings and reviews will become the norm.
Paul Chaney’s last blog post..The SEO value of a PRWeb press release
I have quickly added 6 and 7 to the list.
http://www.digitalcapitalism.com/digitalcapitalism/2008/07/my-response-5-p.html
Kipp Bodnar’s last blog post..My Response: "5 Predictions on The Future of Social Media"
Great. So we’re up to 8 between Robin and Kipp. I like them.
Who can add 9 and 10?
I don’t know if I would call these additions of 9 and 10, so much as expansions on a few of what you mentioned.
With 4 I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of where the market is going with #3. That is, the new tools that will come in are going to be highly utility based. Social networks as they are I think have grown much more mainstream, and are a bit of a known beast now. They’re boring. They still serve a purpose with marketing (though their effectiveness is arguable), but when it comes to early adopters, I’d look to more utility based sites (delicious, for example, though that’s not what I was thinking). This shift can also be seen in acquisitions. A lot of acquisitions that have been occurring are not for social networks, but sites that are much more utility oriented.
#2 is a must as everything is becoming more decentralized (which lends itself to the utility concept above, and the portability concept that is optimized by FriendConnect for 90m people).
#5 though… really? You think virtual worlds will gain that much traction? I would say if Spore works out to be as big a hit as WoW, then that’s possible, but otherwise i’m still surprised. : )
Nathan Snell’s last blog post..How I came to work 65 hours a week and love it
Will have to agree with Kipp. Increased adoption of cell phone based social integration is going to be a biggie. GPS will be a large driving force.
#4 could be expanded to include database compatibility, whereby we could move all friends between social platforms–or group them into networks. The hassle of refriending is time consuming and inefficient.
Roberta Murphy’s last blog post..A Real Estate Chuckle
Great article. I think portability is becoming more and more of a necessity. How much time do you spend creating profiles, finding friends, making connections, etc. I sometimes feel like a broken record. It would be so nice to do it once and move on with life.
I think you’ve got some viable outlooks here. I also agree that SM is very much in its infancy.
I think SM will become highly specialized as well and companies will use SM beyond marketing, such as Investor Relations and product development.
I blogged about Social Media jobs yesterday; maybe that’s a starting indicator of some trends?
http://www.mediabadger.com/2008/07/the-new-jobs-titles-of-social-media/
Thanks! Great insight from many hear. We all learn together.
Webconomist’s last blog post..The New Jobs & Titles of Social Media
Great article Jim,
I could not agree with you more on ratings and reviews. I believe if used correctly, it can become the foundation for community around passion points and expanded into greater consumer/producer/community interaction.
@Nathan and someone on Sphinn both question virtual worlds (item #5). I do think we’re at least 3 years out on that, and I’m saying they will be walled gardens like Second Life.
But 3D virtualization will put you into the user experience better than Flash. And if you get more in the user experience, you’re more likely to buy (assuming the product is good). That’s the kind of virtual worlds I’m talking about.
Ideally, as in #4, you have an avatar that travels from world to world with you. You heard it here first.
~Jim
I look at #4 speaking more to the mobile social aspect rather than the portability aspect, but in a sense, they are both somewhat similar in their goal. The social as a more portable, fluid entity.
Marc
I agree about the portability issue. The Internet has fundamentally changed, and mobility is going to play a very very big part in the new Internet.
Elite Blogger’s last blog post..The new Facebook
Another one:
I think we will see widespread adoption of social media suited analytics. Currently we are very reliant on each platforms reports, which honestly, in most cases, are archaic.
There is another article floating on the net about the future of Social media networks sites, but instead it was saying that it is most likely to die.
Its main argument is that social media has a trend, first the hype and everyone joins in. Then people slowly lose interest because there is nothing else to do.
It also gave an example to the previous big social medias and how they are slowly losing active users. They mentioned how facebook is trying to solve this issue, how to keep everyone interested by creating new things to do and not just create page, invite, message and that’s it.
On the other hand, google and others are reconsidering about the voting system because of illegitimate votings. I can have 100 friends and tell them to vote for my site… if I vote for their site too.
New things needs to develop with social media and whichever company discovers it, they will be here for a very long time
Nice list. It’s always fun to learn of other people’s perspectives and where they see the Internet evolving. I just took a very detailed dive into the characteristics of Portability within the next generation of Internet products — check it out…
http://tpgblog.com/2008/07/23/to-have-and-own-evaluating-portability-through-quick-mi/
Let me know what you think.
Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy
http://tpgblog.com
Jeremy Horn’s last blog post..Memorable Utility. Evaluating Convenience through Quick-MI.
@Breian: The people who say this is a “fad” are partly right. The hype about it will certainly fade. But then there’s the important part they are wrong about. Is two-way communication a fad? No way. We’re only moving forward there. Will some of the tools we like now seem quaint and a bit dumb in 2-5 years. I certainly hope so!
@JeremyHorn: I hope you’re right on the portability. Good to know you’re working on it!
@BrianChappell Yeah, going to 6 sites to get 6 different types of data (if you’re lucky) and then trying to make sense of that has to go!
~Jim
“FriendFeed is a perfect example. What could be an interesting utility is a lengthy stream of noise so far. The design is not very friendly.”
I agree completely. And, do not see why so many people are enthralled by FriendFeed . It is nothing, but the endless posting of one-liners that are nothing but pure drivel.
The problem is, that we have to many accounts. If you write something on twitter you should update identi.ca too etc.
I believe we will have one or two systems in the future that handle all networks. Friendfeed is a step in the right direction and SocialAddict is some sort of possibility too, but we are not there yet.
Philipp Sauber’s last blog post..EPOC: Computer lernen Gedanken lesen
You complain about the noise from FriendFeed. Well, then, you’re not using it correctly. Filter the noise by removing those creating it in your feed, that’s quite simple.
I look for CONSUMER reviews when I am buying online (which I prefer to do than go to the mall, generally speaking). I tend to head to the sites that offer that. Mind you I won’t necessarily buy the product from that site. I also look for value for money, once I’ve decided the product I want.
I do work for a client that realizes that content is king. They produce much of their own content, and they then spread that around their network of sites.
I’ve never found any attraction in virtual worlds, such as Second Life, and now, Lively. Then again, I’m not a gamer. Perhaps if I was I would find them more fun. Myself, I’d rather have words and images, and perhaps audio and video where required. I don’t need to be playing around with an avatar. It doesn’t help in any way.
Portable networks? That’s why I like Twitter so much. I can start a conversation on my desktop PC, and go seamlessly to SMS.
@Eyebee: I have no doubt that I’m using FriendFeed incorrectly. I just haven’t spent the time to filter it as you say, and make good use of the rooms, etc.
But the funny thing is, when I did a Tweet asking who is getting value from FriendFeed, 100% of the responses I got were negative. Not scientific, but a sign that FriendFeed good improve their user experience. That was the point. It’s early, for FriendFeed and most other things…
Let’s be honest, if we look at the broad picture, even the Internet, or at least the Web-based part of the net, is still almost a baby. It’s still a rushing screaming and crying adolescent trying to become an adult in a fast moving world.
Of course we all like to think we live in a modern innovative age - the Victorians did for sure, and they did for their time - but history will look back with some humor at some of our efforts now of course, in fact this is all moving so fast, that we even look back and laugh sometimes at what solutions and products we were using online a mere ten years ago.
So yes, John, I 100% agree SM is very much in it’s infancy. Some networks will prevail, some will fall, and there will surely be some surprises along the way!