Prediction or wish list social media ?
12/15/08 08:11 AM
I have worked with, and auditioned, a LOT of interactive, advertising and creative agencies over the years and one thing I have noticed is that a LOT of creative people have no basis in reality. They come in with their big ideas but don't talk about success metrics, they talk about change and embracing the customer without looking if the organization is ready for change. Most of them are legends in their own minds and you can easily see them at meetings multitasking because they are too busy to really get involved with presentations where they are NOT the center of attention.
Yes, social media is hot and everyone is looking to do something social but the reality is that most marketing departments are not set up to anything social and a lot of senior people don't understand the importance of social media to consumers or the brand. In addition the finance people want to know how social media is going to impact the bottom line. Before you decide that social media is hot I want to share with you my predictions for social media in 2009:
1. Social media will continue to grow, in the older demographic segments only but will level off. Most of the growth from social media is coming from the older demographic the younger demographics are pretty much saturated and integrate social media into their lifestyles.
2. There will be a shakeout in social media platforms. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace will all appeal to specific demographic and social segments.
3. Social media will penetration will level off. It's new, it's fun, it's cool but after awhile time constraints will force a lot of users to say "why in the world do I want to share all this with everyone". A lot of people will also drop off when they realize that it's hard to get people to follow them or find friends online.
4. Companies will be slow and cautious about embracing social media. They are just not set up to have one to one conversations with customers and pressure from ad agencies will continue to push traditional ad models (top down).
5. Little tolerance for trial and error. "OK, we tried social media but what did it do for sales?" There are a lot of metric tools out there but you are assuming that companies have people to work with and analyze these tools. After spending 6 figures for some web analytic solutions companies are reluctant to spend more for qualitative metrics.
6. It's the bottom line in a down economy. I believe companies should spend more in a down economy to attract and retain customers but the reality is that senior managers care about the numbers and only the numbers. Convincing them to spend money and allocate employees to social media programs that may or may not work will be a long, pain in the ass task for most eMarketing people.
7. More and more consultants, interactive agencies, brand agencies and research companies will start to fuel the fire that marketing as we knew it dead and that the new future is not a traditional marketing model or its impact points within the organization.
8. The economy is getting ready for the 2nd wave of bad news. Option ARM mortgages are soon going to become a new buzzword as the interest rates start to kick in and a lot more people are going to lose their homes or walk away from their homes as mortgage payments increase 40, 50, 60% . (Option ARM's, which were sold in 2006 and 2007 are mortgages that were sold to people with very low interest rates like 1% for the first 2-3 years. When they are reset with current interest rates people could see mortgage payments double.) This means consumers are going to become angrier and will be more afraid than ever to spend. Social media will see a lot of people venting and venting about products and brands will become the new marketing battlefield.
I have worked at a lot of big companies with big consumer brands and still stay in touch with people there. They are looking at social media but believe me if P&G is questioning its effectiveness more and more companies are going to stay on the sidelines.
