Social Media Trends: My Prediction For 2011-2012 (And Beyond)

Posted on 13. Jan, 2011 by Ashley Porter in Social Media Marketing

With social media being one of the hottest areas of growth for online businesses in many industries, I thought it would be a great idea to share with you my predictions of what I believe will continue to be the frontier of online social networking AND what this could mean for your business growth.

Here are Ashley’s Top Social Media Predictions and Trends:

KEEPING UP-TO-DATE WITH YOUR INDUSTRY IS CRITICAL TO YOUR SUCCESS WITH SOCIAL MEDIA (AND YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS)

• Again: It’s important to be up-to-date on what is going on in your industry.
• Learn from those who are already successful in your industry – and are accomplishing what you want to accomplish & have a track-record of results. Study and take note of what are they doing and how they do it? This is where your task would be similar to that of an intern.
• What are the insights that you can learn from someone else? – Take notice and be aware. A great tool that I use for note-taking is evernote.com I can take notes digitally and access them anywhere (plus there is a mobile app making it even easier)
• Learn what it is that your target market needs – while there is a rapidly growing demand yet no one has found a viable solution or the “solution” needs revising.

WEBSITES AND ONLINE BUSINESSES THAT OFFER MORE PERSONALIZATION AND CUSTOMIZATION WILL THRIVE

• Fulfilling the specific needs of your market greatly increases your sales. The way to do this is to get to know what they like, desire, need, etc…get quick (or thorough) assessment of where they are in the process and where the want to go…Then cater your message, service, or product to that exact need. Have the steps laid out.
• Do this step above and: you will be better able they are able too capture attention, hold interest, and progress towards closing more sales
• Examples: Sites such as Facebook.com, Match.com, etc whose goal is all about connecting with others has multiple ways of linking others with similar interests and sites like Ikea.com, amazon.com, etc. further encourage sales through recommending based on your previous interest increasing the likelihood that you enjoy your shopping experience (as well as shop longer or do some repeat shopping)

WEBSITE OWNERS WILL HAVE TO WORK TO GAIN TRUST

• Who do you trust online? – not everybody out their has your best interests in mind. As greed becomes a common theme among the Internet marketing industry, sites loose credibility and trust in the eyes of the end-user such as you and me by selling products that aren’t worth the asking price, by presenting you with outdated information, by heavily exaggerating the results you can obtain from using their products and services, etc.
• There are THOUSANDS of advertisers online who are all competing for attention. They want the spotlight shinning brightly on their products and services. Unfortunately there are so many people competing for the same audience that they never really get seen or stay under the radar because people are congregating and hanging out with (and spending money with) those who have shown that they are trustworthy.
• Doing business with online websites that you trust will become a common theme in 2012 and beyond as site owners and Internet marketers work to improve their trust in your eyes.
• Think about what are the important things that make a website credible and make sure to incorporate those things into your website (if you are a website owner) as the internet marketing industry becomes more and more competitive, you will need to work to earn the trust that your market needs to do business with you.

THERE WILL BE A SHIFT TOWARDS INTEGRATION OF OFFLINE/ONLINE BUSINESS AND MOBILE

• Many developments, within the technology world, impacting the future of social media – such as:

The launch of the iPad

Faster and more technologically-advanced smart phones,

Apps connecting mobile to web

Integration of mobile + web + video

And much more…

I believe that this is a niche area that is on the rise and seeing leaps and advancements at a steadily growing rate. Not only will websites optimize their pages for mobile phones but businesses will also become more targeted to mobile phone users by engaging them through their most coveted mobile devices.

And there you have it…just a few of my thoughts, regarding what’s on the rise in social media….

Let me know what thoughts you have about the rise of social media (in the comment section below).

Take care,

About Ashley Porter

Ashley is a full-time mother, blogger, and an Internet marketing professional. You can connect with her on this blog or on social media.

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