View Courtney Hunt's profileProjections for social media in 2012 reflect three core themes: privacy, performance insights, and value creation. The pieces selected for this News Digest by guest blogger Jerry Carducci provide thought-provoking perspectives on these themes, as well as the anticipated direction of social media and its growth potential when applied to the workplace.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on the items in this News digest directly via the blog, or join the dialogue on LinkedIn. We especially welcome other examples of social media predictions for 2012. We also appreciate your bringing items on other topics to our attention via LI, Twitter, or FB, or by emailing a link to news@sminorgs.net. Thanks!
You may also want to check out Jerry's follow-up post: The Social Workplace: The Future is Now.
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Projections for social media in 2012 reflect three core themes: privacy, performance insights, and value creation. The pieces selected for this News Digest by guest blogger Jerry Carducci provide thought-provoking perspectives on these themes, as well as the anticipated direction of social media and its growth potential when applied to the workplace. Specifically:
- Beverly Macy brings forth her predictions from a corporate governance perspective and discusses how social media enables companies to compete better in a global marketplace.
- Dan Kehrer discusses his predictions for small businesses in our stagnant economy, including the need to use of social media to target customers, manage on-line reputation, and create an innovative environment to bring more value.
- Sarah Meij brings some insightful perspectives focused around content management, digital influence marketing and socially enabled CRM from a next generation point of view.
- Sam Fiorella speaks to the future of social privacy, the evolution of social networks as “feeder sites,” and influencer outreach.
My observations regarding workplace applications and implications of social media are as follows:
- Privacy policies have come under scrutiny, as exemplified by the settlement requiring Facebook to obtain user approval of changes to privacy policies before they go into effect. As job seekers and employees clean-up their digital activities and/or create alternative pages that are more professionally oriented and have restricted access, it will become increasingly difficult for employers to look into and/or monitor social backgrounds. (Note from Courtney Hunt: this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)
- Organizations use profile and other data from social sites to gain insights into web preferences and other online habits, enabling them to target marketing campaigns. Even more important are the qualitative comments from customers, vendors and others about their experiences with the organization. Understanding qualitative information gleaned from such an analysis can provide valuable insights that impact every aspect of the organization, from talent acquisition and development, to processes, to product/services.
- Consumer review sites are increasing, providing insight into the experiences of others. Organizations will need to be better “social listeners,” which emphasizes the need for deeper analysis and understanding of what is being said and using it as a source of continuous improvement, innovation and identifying hidden opportunities to increase their value proposition.
Categories: applications, benefits, best practices, challenges, leadership, opportunities, strategy
For additional articles that address related issues, click on terms of interest in the category cloud on our website.
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Title: Social Media -- 4 Trends to Watch in 2012
Source: Huffington Post
Author: Beverly Macy
Lead Paragraph: I am on a mission to help Fortune 500 companies answer the question, "What is social media and how can it help our company?"…. Senior executives and managers cannot make decisions or allocate budget to something they know very little about. You are at a competitive disadvantage if you do not embrace the power of social media and understand how it applies to the enterprise. Your competitors are already there. Your incoming digital native workforce is there. In fact, 2012 is the year companies will move from social media to social business.
Brief Commentary from Jerry Carducci: Leaders who don’t believe social media can have a huge impact on the performance of their organizations are missing huge opportunities. As Macy points out, every area within the organization can benefit. “Going Social” represents the next generation of organizational change in creating an inclusive environment that empowers, encourages innovation, and creates a source of market differentiation. As exemplified in my case study about a consultancy that has embraced social media (Corporate Culture Meets the Digital Era), leveraging new technologies involves taking the culture of an organization to the next level.
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Title: 10 Small-Business Trends to Know about for 2012
Source: Arizona Business Gazette
Author: Dan Kehrer
Lead Paragraph: As 2012 unfolds and small-business owners continue to face an anemic economy, knowing the trends that will reshape how you do business can give you a critical edge. Here are 10 top small-business trends for 2012 and beyond…
Brief Commentary from Jerry Carducci: Small business historically has been the economic growth engine. Because of their size, niche orientation and limited resources, entrepreneurs tend to be more receptive to innovation and finding ways to employ technology cost effectively. They must be more savvy and continuously connected and engaged with their customer base and targeted in their campaigns. Web-based or "cloud" computing, mobile commerce and social-media marketing are three fast-growing mega trends that are reinforcing each other at the same time. There are lessons to be learned from these enterprises in terms of how they employ social technology to build value that flows both from the inside-out, as well as outside-in.
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Title: Five Social Media Trends for 2012
Source: Sara Meij blog
Author: Sara Meij
Lead Paragraph: If you Google ‘social media trends 2011′, the first page will consist of a list of web pages which all provide you with five, six or ten social media trends for this year, 2011. If that image on your laptop screen hadn’t made it clear: everybody is talking about (the latest trends in) social media. We all think we are doomed if we don’t stay on top of the newest online developments. Do we have a point there or are we just running out of breath for no reason? Well... yeah, it is fairly important to keep updated so you will know what to expect from the Internet, your clients, your privacy and, to say dramatically, your future.
Brief Commentary from Jerry Carducci: As Meij sums up in her post, the sharing of voice/views and building community influence will be important going forward. Her perspective represents the next generation of consumers, influencers and leaders that, in numbers, exceed that of the Baby Boomers.
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Title: Trend Currents: Social Media in 2012
Source: Sensei Blogs
Author: Sam Fiorella
Lead Paragraph: The speed of evolution in digital communications and technologies has created a curious conundrum for marketers and business leaders alike. With such rapidly advancing technologies, even the early adopters are too busy trying to understand what is happening now to be capable of looking into the distant future to see what’s coming. Further, they’re so focused on the technologies, networks and platforms that they lose sight of the fact that they are merely small contributing factors to much larger trends.
Brief Commentary from Jerry Carducci: Retaining focus on the “big picture” and how it will impact how and where a firm does business is imperative to meeting business objectives. Social intelligence and social listening are the keys. Why? Because they not only keep an organization focused on the here and now, but also on evolving opportunities.
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