Crowdsourcing Social Media Trends of 2011, and Predictions for 2012

30, December 2011

Usually, when it comes to this time of year, I like to look into a crystal ball, and start thinking about what I think is going to be up and coming in the year to come.

Crystal Ball

Most times, those posts get stuck as drafts, and become a constant reminder of how there’s never enough time to synthesise my thinking, other times, I end up choosing not to publicly share my views, and opinions (there’s something about having your own personal take on things, which sometimes it’s nice to keep personal ;)

This year, I’ve decided to try a different approach.  I want to talk to as many people as possible about what they think has been the big trends of 2011, and where they think 2012 is headed..  In the spirit of collective wisdom being smarter than any one individual, I’m curious to see what a ‘collaborative’ vision of 2012 looks like, and how 2011 looked, through the eyes of peers, and colleagues old and new..

So if you’re interested in sharing your two cents, please feel free to chime in below, in the comments, or to get in touch, if you’d be up for a short 5 minute interview.  I want to get a much more granular view of the Social Landscape across Europe, for 2012, as it looks like a much more interesting tapestry of changing user behaviour, than has been in recent years past, so I’ll be reaching out to folks individually, as well as collectively, to piece together a collective vision of what 2011 was, and what 2012 could be, from the eyes of the “Social Media” Professional community.

If you want to get involved, drop me a line on farhan [at] consciouscomms [dot] co [dot] uk.

Hopefully, the effort will produce something that’s of as much value to the community as it is to me :)  Here’s to a fantastic end of 2011, and a great 2012!

By Farhan Rehman | Posted in Industry, Learning | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Predicting the next big trend, in Social Media

4, June 2011

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, what’s next? People were predicting for a while that Foursquare, or Gowalla would be the next big Social Media play. Heck, for a while, I started to think that perhaps location based services, or even predictive services, like Plancast, would be ‘the next big thing’. But as time progresses, and new tools and platforms continue to emerge, like Quora, I think there’s very little evidence of any new ‘game changer’ on the horizon at the moment.

Location based services have their own intimate challenges balancing privacy, with public broadcast of your location. Whilst they have a bunch of potential, there’s just not been that ‘compelling’ use case that arose through Twitter. The community element hasn’t been as captivating for people outside those circles, and whilst innately useful, they haven’t yet morphed into the essential services that Facebook, or Twitter have become for so many of us.

Having recently heard Michael Wu, from Lithium Technologies talking at #Digital Surrey in May, and also starting to do more research around the science and concepts of Gamification, I’m forming the opinion that ‘gaming’ social media is going to be the next big trend. Now when I mean gaming, I’m not talking about those people that ‘game’ the growth of social media communities, for the sake of artifically inflating the size of a given community, or driving large volumes of unqualified traffic. No, when I talk about gaming, I’m referring to the process of acknowledging, rewarding, and encouraging participation within a given community, or context, to encourge greater engagement.

There’s science, and research, to suggest that through non-monetary based rewards, acknowledgements, and conferring of virtual honour, and status, it’s possible to encourage, and generate repeated behaviour, by members of a community. Naturally, it’s not going to apply to everyone all of the time. But if the success of CyWorld, Moshi Monsters, Farmville, and Habbo Hotel are anything to go by, clearly there’s a huge untapped potential, through gamification, that leads to repeated engagement, community building, and the furthering/progressing of the evolution of online community that we haven’t yet begun to see.

Whether the next big thing manages to isolate out the mechanics of gamification, or has them deeply entrenched within it’s platform/play, I don’t know. But my gut instinct tells me that as the amount of Social Media tools/platforms/channels grow and increase in number, we’re going to need reasons to keep coming back or participating. And we’re going to need more reasons than just, ‘because our friends are there’.

Tech entrepreneurs may be busy building platforms, and tools, and services, but they need to identify what the intrinsic value might be for users, and reward them with positive feedback. On top of that, users will need to feel as if they’re a part of a community beyond just having a problem/pain that’s been solved by the platform. Maybe then we’ll have the makings of the next big thing, but not before.

By Farhan Rehman | Posted in Industry | Tagged , | Comments (0)

How Powerful is Social Media?

17, May 2010

The recent Festival of Media, in Valencia (on the 18th – 20th April 2010), had an interesting poll for the audience, asked by someone online. The question was :

How many times more powerful than traditional marketing channels do you consider Social Media to be?

The result? 37% of the audience considered Social Media to be more than 4 times more powerful than traditional marketing channels:
The Vote - Results

Now just to set some context here, the Festival of Media, in Valencia is billed as a “global festival of media creativity“, and “brings together the international media and marketing industry to celebrate the best in media thinking and creative communications strategy and to explore the media developments that are transforming the industry“.

In 2009, “45% of delegates were directly responsible for advertising budgets and strategy“.

Just glancing through the Delegate List, you can see that the advertising and traditional media channels are all heavily represented, and at fairly senior levels.

This result isn’t from a bunch of Social Media Evangelists, all getting together to have a Social Media Love in, but really from people currently dominating the current Media Landscapes, and really in touch with where things are at, from both an operational, and a direct line of accountability perspective.

Now admittedly, I wasn’t at the festival, I don’t know how many people were in the room at the time that poll occurred, and if you watch the full video below, you can see that Jack Klues, Managing Partner, at VivaKi has just finished up his talk, on Coca Cola, before they move into the poll led by Patience Wheatcroft. However, if we work on the assumption that most of the delegates in the audience were present, and that this session was a part of the main conference, then

I think it’s safe to assume that Social Media is considered to be significantly more powerful than traditional media, by the larger majority of delegates.

So how many times more powerful do you think Social Media is compared to traditional media? (and yes I appreciate there will be some bias, given the audience and general thinking of my community at large, but still, I’d be interested to know what the general opinion out there is)..

By Farhan Rehman | Posted in Conferences | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)