What’s Next for Social Media in 2011?
November 17th, 2010
It’s not New Years’ yet, but Stephanie Schwab at Social Media Explorer is already looking ahead to 2011, laying out some social media trends to watch in the year ahead.
Interesting read… particularly the first trend on the list — Consumer Content Creation:
“Are we in the stream?” That’s the #1 question that brand managers should be asking about their social media efforts going into 2011, because in the coming year people are going to be much more diligent about curating their own content into a more managable form. Consumers are realizing that following eleventy-hundred brands on Twitter and Facebook is getting them some good coupons and deals, but it’s also turning their walls into malls, which is getting overwhelming.
Therefore, what’s happening in Facebook is that consumers are turning off brands posting to their walls, using Friends lists to pay close attention only to their “real” friends, and commenting on or sharing only when something is really juicy. In Twitter, a company called Cadmus aims to change the way we view our streams by determining what content is most relevant to you based on your Twitter usage patterns. Other tools, such as Paper.li and Flipboard (for iPad), also curate Twitter, primarily based on content popularity, and make that content much more reader-friendly.
For brands, this means it’s not going to be enough to create content – you have to create content that gets curated into people’s streams. If your content is truly compelling and share-worthy, it’ll get noticed and Liked, it will generate Comments and Retweets, and you’ll be okay because it will have legitimately earned its way into people’s streams. If not – you’ll have to have a combination of search optimization savvy, fans in high places (influencers), and maybe some cash to Promote your content right under people’s Twitter noses.
Tags: brand, branding, Facebook, marketing, PR, social media, social networking, social networks, trends, Tweets, Twitter
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