Social Media Predictions for 2013-2014

Presented by

Aakash Kohli www.aakashkohli.info

Harnek Singh www.harnek.info

Jyoti Aggarwal www.jyotiaggarwal.com

Sohel Taiyab Golwalla www.sohelgolwala.com

Amritava Deb Roy www.amritava.in

Social media marketing becomes a business-critical activity

Over the past five years, we have witnessed small business attitudes toward social media evolve from dismissive passivity to cautious

curiosity.

Despite larger brands’ excitable embrace of social media networks

like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, most small businesses

have been slow to include social in their marketing mix.

In 2013, that’s going to change. We think small businesses will approach

social media marketing as a business-critical, daily activity and,

consequently, start seeing the value these channels bring to their

businesses.

Social Media engagement will become Visual

• There’s a big appetite for visual stories and brands that combine images with content in innovative ways will see user engagement spike.

Visual engagement

will be the key• Facebook posts with photos are “Liked” twice as much as text-only posts• Videos posted on Facebook are shared 12 times more than links and text-

only posts• Photo & video posts on Pinterest are referring more traffic than Google+,

Twitter, and LinkedIn• Pinterest users are following more brands than on Facebook and TwitterFacts

LinkedIn keeps getting bigger

LinkedIn gets more updates and people regularly update posts.

Google & Twitter get cozy

Google and Twitter will start integrating more in an attempt to put more pressure on Facebook.

Majority of Twitter accounts are public and Facebook users all usually have some privacy controls on their accounts

Integration of Google and Twitter will be search friendly

Content marketing will play an even bigger role in 2013

Content was a driving force for many businesses in 2012, because when you give people something that’s valuable, you help build a relationship that means people will be much more likely to pay attention to your organization in the future

Information that’s fun or helpful (or both!) is what people share and link to, whether they find that engaging content on a blog, a social media network, or in an email. And that’s important for search, too– Google automatically looks for the best, most useful information on any topic and puts it at the top of search results.

You can expect unique and engaging content to continue as the number one way for small businesses and organizations to build relationships with their audiences and attract new customers or supporters.

Integration of E-Commerce and Social Media

The recent trend in e-commerce have empowered consumers to a great extent. The world of consumers is ready to witness a ‘Big Shift’ in years to come. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) emerged in part to cope with the growing power of customers, but the concept of Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) is ready to flip this equation and anticipates that customers will increasingly take the lead in managing their vendors.

Social media has been a great venue for consumers because of its integrated communication features and potential ecommerce features. But even Facebook has not been able to integrate e-commerce options in it to the fullest extent. Neither do Twitter and LinkedIn have any ecommerce options. This will change in years to come.

The New and Advanced FacebookBy 2013, we can expect Facebook to offer a premium version of Facebook Pages. The premium version will include advanced analytics tools that will enable marketers to attain greater insight around specific fan segments like top commenter, customer or new fan base. Facebook have already acquired Threadsy (an analytics tool) for this purpose

With embedded e-commerce features, customers will have the option to log in and pay for their purchases through their Facebook account. Self-pay commerce apps like Square and GoPayment are already being used and will find extended usage of such apps in days to come.

The other area that will see huge changes is content creation and updating. Marketers will soon have the ability, through automation, to get suggestions for Page updates based on how Facebook users have been reacting to a Page’s previous posts.

Slide Share- The fastest growing Social Network

According to Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, author of Managing Content Marketing and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers, by 2013, Slide share will be the fastest growing social network. Facebook and LinkedIn will be forced to launch their content creation strategies in order to drive further engagement .

Google + (A MUST?)

Google+ will soon be a “must use” service as it becomes the central hub for managing your “official” online public presence in the eyes of Google.

Google will continue to roll services and products under the Google+ umbrella thereby forcing businesses to use it if they wish to get the advantages that Google+ offers.

It will soon be the sole place to manage your local business presence within the Google ecosystem

INSTAGRAM will get BIGGER (?)

According to a research from ‘The Social Habit’, it is expected that by 2013, social media users will increase their INSTAGRAM usage at a rate higher than any other social network

The ease of usage will lower the barrier of content creation and contribute towards its enhanced popularity.

Google+ will soon be a “must use” service as it becomes the central hub for managing your “official” online public presence in the eyes of Google.

Podcasters Will Double in Number

According to Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner and author of the booksLaunch and Writing White Papers, with more than 1 billion smart phone users and hundred of millions more coming in 2013, the consumer demand for quality on-demand talk in the form of podcasts will grow enormously in 2013.

References

• http://blogs.constantcontact.com/product-blogs/social-media-marketing/social-media-predictions-for-2013/

• http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-predictions-2013/