The leading provider of online marketing software today announced its top five predictions for 2012. This year there has been a rapid rise in spending on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and so on. In this blog I will explain some of these predictions and how they will be useful in the future.
Firstly, it is said that Social CRM will evolve into a solution for businesses who want to connect marketing to online search. This means they will be able to advertise more and communicate in a better way with customers over the web. This may be through Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. It will make it easy for customers to keep up to date with products and services while their using their social networks. The second prediction was the increase of search algorithms. In 2012 social media will become a key component in search engine results page algorithms. This means these social networks will become popular and be part of nearly every search word entered online by users. With this factor growing it will make it easier for users to search for pages such as groups and events related to Google+ and Facebook by simply searching in google and similar search engines. This is currently very useful and could only get better!
In 2012 it is predicted that companies will look to involve customers and employees in their marketing teams. This will include them sharing information about their products and services with employees and important customers. This is mainly in order to receive feedback whether it is positive or negative. Companies will be able to improve the way they promote and provide services online and as a result it will increase customer satisfaction as they are involved in the process. The fourth prediction made by Optify was that mobiles will be used increasingly for social use. For example more people will use smart phones for last-minute online shopping as well as finding restaurants and booking tickets for events. I myself have used my phone this year to order products and find services on many occasions. This evolution of social use on mobiles will be very beneficial for customers everywhere. Organisations will find ways of improving and building components on mobiles in order to make services easier to use. New user scenarios will be implemented which will first be experimented to assess the benefits and whether it will progress in the future. I myself think it is a very clever idea and nowadays most people tend to buy smart phones for such purposes, therefore it is definitely required in the market. The final prediction was the growth of Facebook and its expansion into new markets. Facebook has a goal of raising $10 billion in 2012. This would fund expansion and help in improving the network. There is potential to create social shopping to five Amazon a run for its money. I personally don’t think that Facebook will be able to compete with sites such as Amazon and E-bay mainly because these are stable organisations that have been around for years and are well known. There are rumours that Amazon will launch a smart phone and Facebook will intend to do the same which should make it interesting to see the outcomes. In a previous blog I read about the new Facebook smart phone but was against it as I think it would not be as demanded by consumers. I don’t think it will have enough reasons to be purchased and will also cost a bomb!
After viewing the predictions I conclude that they seem very attainable as we all must have seen signs and similar features already put into place and they are surely to evolve by 2012. Who knows there may be bigger things to be revealed within the next year?
I can see why social networking sites are being predicted to expand next year as they have already been expanding this year! I have seen a lot of companies recently adding official pages to pages like Facebook, including Manchester United who now have the highest fan base on Facebook (over 20 million!)
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you that the Facebook phone would be a failure unless they also concentrated on other aspects of the phone rather than just social media. Smart phones are used a lot for social media, but people also like other features such as the operating system, available apps, camera, mp3 etc. If Facebook was able to compete on these features, then there would be another serious competitor in the market
Yea im glad you agree with me and I do feel it will be hard to gain these features on such an advanced level on a Facebook smartphone as the social network would be the main feature of the phone.
ReplyDeleteI think Facebook trying to branch out and become a online store is a recipe for disaster. Amazon is known for online shopping because people trust it. i would be very surprised if the Facebook store became successful. I agree with you on the move into more use of smart phones, smart phones are getting better and better every year..with more capabilities and more features than ever, having a smart phone will become near essential to everyone.
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