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Top 10 Future Trends in Social Media Engagement

People of the Earth We are SOCIAL!

Author Designation

C.R. Vinay Founder & Managing Director Aug. 4th 2011

Date

www.customercentria.com

Origin
155565; < Latin socialis, equivalent to soci ( us ) partner, comrade + -alis -al (pertaining to)
The way I look at it, its not about the media. Its about us, the people our partners, our friends, our communities and our closely-knit societies. Simple. In the past, the post-man and telephone and more recently the email enabled us to remain in touch and share experiences and content. Today, we have a whole other idiom that is changing our lives. And the significant way this manifests itself into our daily lives is that today facebook(ing) Tweet(ing) are verbs and not just derivatives of tools, just as Googling set the stage for the search idiom on the web. People that we engage with, the places we inhabit and frequent, the experiences that we seek and the expressions that we share are all now available at the swipe of a figure on a touch screen device near you. Relationships and experiences are no longer virtual but due to the Social World they have become Real. Circles of Relationship (ask google +) have become tighter and ones manifestation in the Social World is no longer a login ID but it is the portrayal of oneself. In fact, we stand at a turning point where the virtual world is no longer an extension of the brick and mortar world, but entities from the virtual world, as proven by Angry Birds, will soon be occupying physical space of the real world. And this fundamental aspect of how our lives are changing and evolving sets the stage for my views on what are next trends and how they will play out in the world of social interactions.

Social Commerce will rise and rise and rise!

More and more companies and brands will increase their budgets significantly globally. Also 1.93 Billion $ funding for startups in this space in the 1st Trimester of 2011 alone!! There is a paradigm shift from social networking models that emphasize on the community towards monetizing services that could be leveraged from the communities. This is the latest evolution in commerce that leads to collaborative efforts from the communities, rather than a buyer-seller transaction system. Social commerce has led to increased customer satisfaction, reducedstress on call centres, and viral marketing. Influencers & Super Users within the community handle the customer inquiries and support, leading to ROI.

Community based Group-Buy Social Commerce will Rise Rapidly

Groupon, LivingSocial and our very own SnapDeal will see rapid adoption more globally. There has been a rapid rise in the Community based Group Buying behavior over the internet. However, there is still doubt over the loyalty that consumers may have over these sites and people being deal hungry, prefer to go wherever the best market place available. The future of community based Group Buying is bright but the models will change as the Organizations will need to be highly localized to offer benefits to both consumers and organizations and there-in lies the strength of the proposition. As long as its all about the people, the deal is made. Also, companies may decide to open their own Group-Buy portals (e.g Dell Swarm) and ensure they are directly in touch with the consumers.

Social plug-ins for eCommerce Space will see a Phenomenal Rise

More and more companies will want to get access to and from the social interaction world. (including social referral programs etc.) There has been an emergence of social plug-ins in the form of social media powered referral rewards programs. Social commerce after all is commerce through Word of Mouth, thus more and more tools that facilitate and reward Word of Mouth transactions are being developed. E.g Levis integrated Facebook Social Plugins on their website that allowed customers to share Levis products with their friends, search through Top-Liked products across their networks. Finally, business organizations can no longer choose to ignore the Social World and hence there is a need to develop the social plug-ins in order to be relevant in the modern day.

Location Based Services will offer and enable a Stronger Local Connect
Location Based Services such as Four Square, Gowalla, etc. will thrive in the near future and will continue to grow rapidly expanding the horizon across geographies and demographics world over, all the way from the US to China and from India to Russia. People will want to capitalize on contentthat is relevant to their locality and share the same thereby making the social connect more closer and relevant, potentially leading to a closer circle of relationships that people will profit from. Location Based services for Mobiles may contribute $12.7 billion in 2014 & expected to grow to more than 500 million users by end of 2012 (currently at about 50 million). Location based services will help in increasing impulse buying by providing real-time deals and offers based upon the location of a person. Stronger One to One Relationship marketing takes place as consumer responds directly to the messages and information is shared. This will enable organizations to create Local Brand ambassadors through experience sharing.

Augmented Reality will shape experiences in accessing desired locations

Augmented Reality means Information, 3-d models or live action blended with or overlaid onto the physical world around us in a real time mechanism. Augmented Reality has an important evolutionary step to play in social networking as it can provide real time perspective of a Location. Augmented Reality will be used to bring to life virtual/real social events & Locations such as museums, tourist spots etc. Technologies such as Layar as well are seeing more and more adoption on the Android platform will continue to fuel growth. On another note, Augmented Reality has major implicationsfor e-commerce as through AR consumers will be able to Try On various clothing, accessories etc. Thus, Augmented Reality is well placed to lead in shaping consumer experiences.

Video Content Sharing Will Increase Rapidly.

Video content sharing is now a very important part of social interaction. And this trend will continue to grow exponentially as new technologies and video steaming mechanisms make it easier and friendlier for both Users and Brand Marketers alike to share , express and engage with and amongst each other. Google Plus and Facebook have recently used the video platform to connect users through video chat. Video based portals are truly owned by the masses the consumers create the content they want to see and have the choice of viewing content that they want to see Over 35 hours of video footage is uploaded per minute on Youtube & Youtube viewership on Mobile is roughly 10%, which rings me to the next game changer.

Mobile Interactions changing social landscape.

Well this has been a noise that we have been hearing for a while now, but it is now indeed coming true. According to Morgan Stanley, by 2015 mobile internet will overtake desktop internet Web phones and Tablet sales now exceed the dollar volume of PC sales making them highest unit growth Internet access devices. Personalization on the go through mobile phones is defining the new age consumer. However, this has resulted in stiff and Intense battles for application dominance and OS creation and is shaping the impact on the development of Cloud Computing and future development. But then again these are fun times for us as consumers and people of the world in general. Security and privacy concerns are also major challenges that need to be addressed through the growth of this trend. 4G will change Content sharing further. Increased Bandwidth will allow social commerce to be more engaging and experiential. 4G is geared toward mobile internet, Voice calls will be treated as VOIP calls (what online chatting softwares do) and more emphasis will be placed on data transfer. This suggests a shift in paradigm from Voice to data based telecom. Also, 4G is not a complicated technology, it will make data transfer faster and cheaper allowing consumers to share their experiences with each other in real time. Although we in India must get over the 3G cycle first!!

Social Gaming to gain Momentum

Zyngas IPO according to the Wall Street journal is likely to raise 1b $. Zyngas games, which include CityVille, FarmVille and others, are widely played on Facebook with about 88 million monthly active unique users, according to AppData. What Henry Ford did with the Model T made cars affordable and available to the masses, social gaming (through companies like Zynga) has done for gaming. Zyngas fabled rise to a $15bn valuation, EA acquiring Playfish, Disney acquiring Playdom, AAA titles like Farmville, Cityville, and Mafia Wars and unlike many digital trends it is not hype. Adding more dollar value to the game are the successful monetization strategies based on in-app micropayments for inapp trading that are at the heart of most social games today. Social gaming is already changing the way we conduct commerce and trade in our own small ways. How many of us have traded to keep our valleys green and animals protected on games we engage with in our social spaces. This is only going to rise as companies invest to change our lives and create more engageing experiences for us as People. Zynga

being case in point. Which brings me to the next aspect of social gaming - Mobile Gaming : John Doerr, legendary venture capitalist, coined theterm SoLoMo social, local, and mobile to define the attributes future killer apps must possess to be,well, killer. Todays mobile smart phones are the new gaming consoles indeed games are the number one app category downloaded both on the Apple and Android platforms. Rovios Angry Birds has already reserved its gilded cage as the first mobile AAA title in history. With advances in augmented reality and near field communications, the mobile gaming space is poised to change the very nature of games and gameplay as we know it.

Social Relief Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa would have loved to live in our days.
Today Earthquakes and Tsunamis, Floods and Famines spatter our world with their relentless wrath. How awesome is it when a world can be mobilized to share relief and effect happiness amongst the people of Earth!! More and more causes will be undertaken more and more using Twitter, Facebook, etc. with direct contributions from people across the globe. This empowers the participants to execute from the front and get more people involved. Easier crowdsourcing models enable faster action on part of Non Profit Organizations. Social media becomes an important place to hunt for micro-volunteers or simply put, each one of us. Through social media there can possibly be an Evolution of Non Profit Organizations into a network of Organizations working towards Social Good.

10

Your Reputation is Online

More and More firms will realise that Reputation Management will become most critial in the social space. Technology will evolve more specifically to address this aspect for companies and brands. As there is a shift towards One to One marketing and communication, the reputation of firms can be tarnished through one bad experience. In this situation it becomes extremely important to monitor, analyze and respond to consumers and stakeholders in a timely manner. ORM is not just a PR exercise or Customer Centre on the Social Space but an integral part of the marketing strategy that can create consumer behavior knowledge and truly transform brands and the relevancy they have. Social Media Measurement tools will no longer be restricted to measurement and categorization of the online buzz. But, these tools will be self learning tools that over a period of time will be able to project and predict the impact businesses are having over the consumers and other stakeholders. Thus, allowing the businesses to be proactive in their communication to the stakeholders.

To summarize, in the Social World, the People of the Earth will now decide the market place and the market place will come to us.