2011 is the lunar year of the rabbit. I find it interesting that somehow my predictions for social media in 2011 have same similar characteristic of the furry animal.
1. Strong focus on location marketing
Like a rabbit jumping from one farm to another searching for the best carrots, location marketing will become one of the most important feature for social media in 2011.
Location marketing encompasses location based marketing. Location based marketing looked to bring online customers to the stores. That’s just the first part of it. The next goal of location marketing is to encourage/recommend friends within their social network to go to the same venue too.
Such recommendations will come in short comments, the number of likes and star rating.
The signs are there. Google with their hotpot experiment, Foursquare with their latest photo and comments feature. When Facebook launch Places in Asia, it would be surprising there will be encouragement to provide reviews to venues.
As such, social media marketers must not only look at rewards fans for coming to the venue but also for recommending the venue to their social network.
2. Social media as a business tool
Social media has matured that it has moved beyond experiment. The millennial generation (age 18-33) will conquer the social networks and it will be hard to ignore them.
Social media will have to grow beyond just a communication tool into an essential business tool to attract the millennial generation. Mass media won’t die, it will just get lesser audience in this age group.
The question for social media marketers would be how they transform this digital communication tool into a business tool.
The solutions are there, the question would rather be that either you are in or be lagging behind.
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