Social Media Trend Predictions For 2013
30/11/2012
Social networking has continued to grow in the past year with Facebook continuing its reign atop the social hierarchy however the question to ask yourself is, will this continue in the new year? Will businesses start to see a higher return on investment through social media? Will it be normal for everyone to be able to tweet including the big corporate CEO? This article will look at some predictions of the social media trends that could unfold in 2013.
Mobile social media will continue to soar, it is becoming more and more popular for people to only use social on their phones when they are interacting on the go. Facebook in its quarterly SEC filing claimed that "[We] anticipate that the rate of growth in mobile usage will exceed the growth in usage through personal computers for the foreseeable future.” The rate at which this is likely to happen is getting quicker and quicker as the mobile technology gets better .This for social media platforms could be seen as both a positive and a negative. Platforms like Instagram are at an advantage as their strategy is based for the mobile market; their users are in fact larger than Twitter. For more traditional platforms this means that they need to make sure their mobile sites are up to the high standard that people now expect. They need to be fast loading and have easy functionality and maybe even something more innovative. The advertising part of the social platforms will need a new look developing options which will be attractive and not annoying for the user.
The more niche social networks will continue to grow and become more and more popular. Take for example Pinterest in the past year they have grown by 5,124 percent. It shows that more and more people are looking for something different and fresh to be able to say that they were one of the first to use it. In 2013 there will be a large increase in the social media management systems as well as niche social networks like Hootsuite where you are able to post across multiple networks.
Social media has allowed companies to gain a lot of information about their customers/clients and their buying trends. The next challenge is to produce software and tools that will analyse the data and how they can use it for the business. The coming year will see the emergence of this which will be capable of tracking multiple social stats. This will look at stats in real-time from likes to customer sentiment; tweets this will mean that companies will improve customer service and can help predict future buying patterns. This type of social data is going to grow over the New Year although it is already being used in some companies.
It is not enough for companies just to know how to tweet and put a post on Facebook or Google+. There are specific ways of harnessing social networks, in the next year there will be a growth in social media education. Social media will join email as part of basic business needs.
This year has seen a large growth in social networks and made the jump from bedroom to boardroom. In 2013 there will be an increase in the amount of companies that have taken the plunge begin to reap the rewards and continue to grow.
If your business needs to get on the social networking trend contact us via our online contact form we offer social networking management for all types of businesses.
