We wanted to provide some simple yet powerful takeaways of where we see social media headed as we head into 2010.
We have never seen a hotter market or a more fascinating time – as social media is truly changing how we interact with each other let alone our favorite brands.
What we see working at Vitrue is staying committed to aggressively driving social media marketing forward and continually striving for strategic and creative new ways to meet and exceed evolving client and market needs as being social is now intrinsic to mainstream culture.
This morning we saw a great article in “Ad Age”, Starbucks Rings in the Holidays With Big Social-Media Push, that hit on one of our core trends.
“It’s like we’ve taken the version 1.0 of last year and now we’re really doing it at scale and going to a lot more places where our customers already are,” said Chris Bruzzo, VP-brand, content and online at Starbucks. “People are saying this is going to be a big year for social media and we’re a microcosm of that. Whereas last year it was a curiosity, this year it’s a core part of the program.”
So what do we anticipate seeing more of next year?
Check our top trends and let us know what you think will shape the future of social media.
Vitrue’s Seven Trends for Social Media in 2010
- “Grass Roots Social Media” - push to customize and segment, making more localized and more relevant
- Integration of social media will become the norm/become fabric of corporate marketing programs – what typically was siloed management of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, social media will be come much more integrated – like in the 90s for ad serving whole departments are being created to manage social media. Testing and trials are over. It is here to stay.
- Social communications sophistication - companies will be employing some of the same tactics they have used with email marketing over the past 10 years. They have learned about messaging their customer base from years of trial, and now will be using much of the same process and policy.
- Brands going global in their social strategy
- Platform approach – brands need management systems and scale – everything is getting more social at an exponential rate
- “Wisdom of friends” vs the “wisdom of crowds” purchasing influence continued to be shaped more and more by our peers
- Facebook continues to evolve as the “identity platform” as its social currency, interactivity and its maturing portability is unmatched
