Despite the doom and gloom of the marketplace, 2009 is destined to also be a year of change.  Social Networking and related media have exploded in user volume in the past year, and for the first time they are playing direct roles in daily life.  iPhone apps and other mobile applications have kept us connected away from our desk tops and in ways never before imagined. As social networking becomes more and more central to the way we live, we can expect major changes to the way social networking itself works.  Ravit Lichtenberg writes about 10 ways social media will change in 2009:

 Social media is morphing into a holistic experience that speaks to people’s social needs in new ways. If you are a CEO of a startup who is focusing on the next generation of social media, here are 10 areas you’ll need to take into consideration in the coming year:      

 

1. It’s About People - We’re moving away from “users,” “customers,” and “shoppers”: social media is bringing back the human element to all digital interaction. People now deliberately seek meaningful connection, self-expression, and a relevant and receptive community. Forrester’s Social Technographicresearch and Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s Groundswell represent a huge step towards a new kind of behavior-driven segmentation, but companies that want to succeed will need to take it further and tap into people’s evolving needs, using the social media context as the new baseline.

2. Creating Meaning and Value - Social media will no longer be about features and applications. These have become a dime a dozen. People will be looking to get tangible and relevant value out of their social experience; they’ll be looking for meaning and for order. “Social media online is no different from social media offline,” said Brent Csutoras at a recent Social Media Club event. People will be looking for ways to keep their networks going regardless of device or platform. They will connect around meaningful topics and have live and simultaneous conversations within parameters they themselves define, which will bring relevance back to their interaction with others.

3. Enabling Convergence - FriendFeed – now both a destination and an API — is growing rapidly, despite a miserable wiki-like interface and interactive experience. That’s because people are at a loss when it comes to pulling their conversations together from various sources and assigning meaning to them. Companies that deliver beautifully designed, easy-to-use, searchable, flexible, aggregating platforms will become more important than any social media tool by itself. Deb Schultz, a San Francisco-based web strategist, compares social media to an art exhibit and says people will “curate their live presence through the web ecosystem as needed.” Noovo and Zannel are examples of early attempts to enable this.

4. Building a Truly Cross-Platform Experience - The iPhone experience has changed the playing field for users, companies, and developers. In Q1 of 2009 alone, Apple sold 4.4 million iPhones, and Google’s Android and the new Palm continue to build on the cross-platform, application- and service-driven model. In the new landscape of social media, people are seeking solutions that seamlessly cut across mobile, web, and live interaction, hopping on and off them like double-decker buses, all with the same pass.

5. Creating Relevant Social Networks - People will create, join, and seek social networks that enable them to have meaningful and relevant experiences with each other. They will measure their return on investment (time spent, level of disclosure, etc.) in replies, comments, their ability to influence, and the value of their learning. Rachel Masters, VP of Strategic Relationships at Ning – a social network that grew a massive 388% in 2008 — says, “the Internet is confusing because it can be used to replicate almost any previous medium. Ning addresses this by delivering social networks that allow people to connect around the things they love.”

6. Innovating in the Advertising Space - Ad publishers and the attached ecosystem will continue to lose revenue until they realign their understanding of what appeals to people who are conversing, connecting, and expressing. The next phase of social media is a gold mine of targeted niche demographics. Nuconomy, an Israeli startup, experiments in creating and delivering highly targeted, dynamic display advertising. Shahar Nechmad, Nuconomy’s co-founder and CEO, says that, on average, Nucomony customers see six to nine times higher click-through rates on targeted ads than on non-targeted ones. “People do click on ads and buy things in the same session,” says Nechmad. Ad agencies and publishers that are able to quickly realign their thinking and create an innovative and relevant product discovery experience will gain significant competitive advantage.7. Helping People Organize their “Old” Social Ecosystem - As aggregating platforms enter the field, people will seek to bring order to the endless bits of information available to them. Video tagging, conversation archiving, taking cloud computing to the next stage, and making search more relevant are some of the new baseline requirements. These represent a significant opportunity for companies willing to undertake this massive endeavor.

8. Connecting with the Rest of the US and the World - With some exceptions, today’s active social media users are early adopters. In the next one to two years, the benefits of social media will cross the chasm and reach the mainstream, not only in the US but around the world — especially in community-driven regions like Southeast Asia andcountries like Brazil, Russia, and Germany. Companies will need to understand the explicit and implicit differences between adoption patterns in different countries and adjust their products to meet these different needs.

9. Preparing for New Social Media Jobs - It has been a harsh year for marketing firms. Companies are looking to divert marketing dollars to more targeted social media destinations. And this is just the beginning. David Spark, founder ofSpark Media Solutions, says that businesses will need to go beyond paying people to Tweet or put up a Facebook page. Social media’s new job descriptions will call on subject-matter experts who can plan for relevant interaction within networks and aggregating platforms and bring together products, services, and people.

10. Making Money - The next phase of social media will bring plenty of lucrative opportunities. With the rise of aggregating platforms, social networks, and new mobile and location-based features, we’re bound to see an increase in targeted and personalized ads, “freemium” packaging, revenue sharing between strategic partners, and a flow from the offline world to online social engagement (such as when real goods complement virtual ones).

Tags: 2009, change, facebook, Social Networking, twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Social Networking, Web Business 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.