In 2011, more businesses began using social technologies, and this trend is expected to continue into 2012. According to their fifth annual survey of over 4,200 global executives, McKinsey found that when used widely, “social technologies can improve a company’s financial results and market share.” To keep up with this change, we spoke to 34 leading business and marketing experts to gather their insights on the key technologies that will shape marketing and sales in 2012 for our free eBook 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions. Here are some of their main predictions:
Integrated Analytics for Market-Driven Insights – In 2012, marketing will be enhanced by advanced analytics, as companies, their marketing analytics teams, and social technology vendors collaborate to transform the flood of social data into useful, measurable insights. Brian Solis and David Meerman Scott highlight this trend as key to how businesses will interact with their audiences, focusing on insights driven by the market rather than marketing, as noted by Brian Solis. These insights will be supported by new technologies that will effectively measure influence and engagement, according to Paul Gillin. Ekaterina Walters from Intel also supports integrated analytics, stating that until brands have the tools to measure the right metrics at the right time in a cohesive manner, “we won’t know what the impact is.”
Toolset/ CRM Integration: 2012 is also touted as the year where we will see further integration of the social technology toolset. Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer and No Bullshit Social Media predicts monitoring platforms will be adding publishing and management solutions, while social platforms will evolve to include e-mail, mobile and website management. The social technology toolset will also see a tighter integration between social data and CRM and web analytics solutions. This tighter social CRM (sCRM) integration will allow brands to address the ROI question and measure the impact on bottom-line results. Errol Apostolopoulos at Optaros, Inc. adds that marketers can expect to see numbers that reflect revenue per fan along “with proven ways to tap into the interest graph”, which will lead to “a lot more social success stories”. Marc Meyer of the Digital Response Marketing Group votes for the integrated dashboard – bundling marketing, monitoring and management “to address multiple accounts and reduce multiple logins and processes.”
The Year of Mobile: 2012 is (yet again) proclaimed as the year of mobile. Smart phones are becoming the primary channel for users to interact with social networks. David Berkowitz shares 2012 will be the year Facebook will have more than half of its users accessing it from mobile devices. Debi Kleiman of MITX predicts that this mobile shift “will require brands to completely rethink how they connect and communicate with consumers.” Jim Storer adds that mobile will become “an imperative, not just a nice-to-have.”
Jay Baer believes that we will see a more concerted efforts by companies to make their content mobile-friendly, while near-field communications (NFL) opportunities will drive relevancy, immediacy and tractions for the mobile-savvy brands. As Neil Glassman puts it, NFL will be about “real, real-time marketing.” Mark Lazen of Social Media Today and The Customer Collective agrees that ultimately, mobile will open up marketing opportunities for relevancy.
Trends to Watch For: Other key social technology developments likely to impact the enterprise this year include – video, Google +, Facebook Edgerank, open APIs, inbound marketing tools and interactive voice response. Access all 140+ predictions on what the experts agree would be the top social technology developments in 2012. Our free eBook 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions also includes predictions on top social marketing developments, biggest challenges, and top news resources. To get the latest from the experts quoted in the 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions, you can follow them on Twitter.
We welcome your thoughts, reactions, and feedback. Other social tech developments likely to impact us this year? Let’s continue the discussion in the comments below, on Twitter at hashtag #AwarenessSMM, Facebook at Social Media Marketing Best Practices, LinkedIn at the Social Media Marketing Mavens Group.