The future of social media, 2011 and beyond : a few leads for tomorrow (1/2)

In spite of its overwhelming growth and impact on conversational marketing, one must recognize that social media is still at its primary stage : Michael Arrington, TechCrunch’s boss, talks about “prehistory”. Therefore, understanding how social media will look like in the forthcoming years is crucial : younger generations (born in the noughties, also known as Generation Y) that grew up with Internet master social media and use it on a daily basis. The issues constantly relayed by mainstream media (privacy threats; productivity drop for employees; “Right-to-forget” bills in France, etc) must be overcome.

To quote Niall Harbison (web entrepreneur and founder and CEO of ifoods.tv), “brands are starting to understand that one of the most powerful means to interact with their customers and value their products is to create content that will nurture their social experience, rather than harass them with advertising messages.” Social brand content is nowadays an imperative, and advertisers need to include it in their conversational marketing strategies. These contents will change as their means of supports evolve, hence the obligation to keep an eye on the trends that will lead the advancements of social media.

I am no soothsayer, but I do think that the following points will be decisive in determining the future of social media. I decided to divide this article into two parts. The first part covers mobile social advertising and geosocial networking websites. The second part will focus on corporate social media strategy and social customer relationship management.

# 1 : Mobile Social Advertising

iOS, Android, Windows 7 Mobile, BlackBerry… The smartphone market growth during the latest years has been absolutely amazing : new models, more and more efficient, are landing on shelves every day. By the end of 2010, 1.2 billion Internet users will use a mobile terminal, a perfect support for web and mobility convergence : the smartphone market will take over feature phones in the US by 2011 (see chart below).

The consequences for social media are huge : mobile social networking applications (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare…) are increasingly popular, with a 240% growth between 2009 and 2010. Facebook advertises heavily on its mobile offer, consisting of : an application for smartphones ; a dedicated website ; and a light version of this website (called Facebook 0, “zero”) for older mobile phones.

Facebook 0 is provided free of charge with some mobile operators, such as SFR in France.

The specificities of such a support (mobility, accessibility, lisibility) will have to be taken into account by advertisers when they set up their conversational marketing strategies. Even simple questions (such as display design and ergonomy) will demand new reflexions and specific answers, as smartphones will certainly be the main support for social media in the upcoming year(s).

# 2 : Geosocial networking

With the smartphone market getting bigger and bigger every year, mobile geolocation (with EDGE, 3G and 4G) is unquestionably going to expand. Geosocial networking websites solely based on this feature may be few at the moment (the leaders being Foursquare and Gowalla, respectively 4 million and 150.000 users), but there is huge potential in this functionality that should not be ignored.

Those networks share more or less the same goal : letting users know where their friends are, according to their latest “check-ins”. Multiple features gravitate around this core, such as the possibility to win virtual badges (that can mesure the prestige of a user among his community). Those badges can be pretty inquiring at times, as shown in the recent partnership between Foursquare and the NASA (check out this video). Geosocial networking websites can also include microblogging and story-telling : Plyce allows users (alongside classic features such as badges) to write the “history” of the places where they check-in.

Foursquare is already being used in local stores as a promotional device (in the form of real-world promotions). If a user manages to become the mayor (a user becomes the “mayor” of a place if he is the one that geolocated himself the most in a specific location ; this fosters a competition between users), he can gain certain prizes.

The Foursquare Mayor, the modern counterpart of Emperor Norton.

Facebook launched recently its own geolocation service (Facebook Places). The main goal is to allow users to know where their friends are. Facebook is currently beta-testing a service called Deals, which allows advertisers to offer promotions to customers who geolocated themselves in a specific spot via Facebook Places. For instance, a Facebook user could be rewarded with a free gift if three of his friends geolocated themselves in a specific shop.

There are endless possibilities with geosocial networks, and these platforms could very well revolutionize the way we approach social media as a whole.

Stay tuned for part 2 !