Great minds think alike..more predictions on social media
12/16/08 03:34 PM
SOCIAL MEDIA CREATES INDIGESTION
Many of us are going to wake up in 2009 wondering "what did we eat?" and "why did we devour it all so fast?" We impulsively adopted everything from hastily assembled Facebook friends and Twitter followers to groups, apps and widgets (usually while shadowing others, such as uber-early adopter Robert Scoble), yet rarely revisited them. Many of us will feel compelled to join the social media equivalent of Weight Watchers, eager to trim the excess and rediscover a modicum of don't-follow-everything discipline. Meanwhile, a new wave of "diet" apps and services from the still-revenue-hungry social media entrepreneurs will flood the market: "For $10 a month, we'll promise you a downsized, manageable, and authentic Friends list." In 2009, less may well become the new more.
INSIGHTS FROM RICH
Exactly what I have been saying and what the research told us ! We'll see that certain social media platforms will attract certain demographics and psychographics as each carves out a niche market and tries to establish itself as the top social media platform. Time is the new currency and anyone that spends a lot of time on social media is in dire need of getting a life. Yes they serve a purpose and that is the emotional need to stay in contact with friends and past coworkers.
THE RE-COURTING OF CONSUMER INTIMACY
Social media will continue pushing beyond one-trick hits and buzz-building to more operational considerations like customer service and employee empowerment, but 2009 will also be the year we rediscover the appeal of living, breathing connections. Our industry research will find that real conversations with consumers, empathetically executed, can yield returns that trump the most sophisticated precision targeting. Brands certainly won't hit the Zappos.com gold standard but many 800 numbers will move from the locked closet of invisibility to visibility and we'll see lots more moderated chat on sites. Also, expect to see more companies using Video FAQs versus text or even doling out good old fashioned hand-written notes and letters. Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation.
INSIGHTS FROM RICH
The question that a lot of companies are going to have to answer is "do we have the infrastructure to support new approaches to communicating with our customers?". A lot will try to do it with minimum staff and will fail while other will try it but will not allow the brand ambassadors to have the responsibility to make decisions that could impact the customers perception of the brand. With all the cutbacks right now it's hard to imagine that a lot of companies have the people to support a social media program.
