A look back at 2010 and predictions for 2011
This year has been an epic ride, just look at how far we have come from our old Posterous blog! Social Media NZ first came to life on the 23rd of August 2009, started by myself, Leonardo Law and a few contributors. We now boast a solid writing team, regular contributors and have support from The Common Room and Henstudio teams who have played a major role in our success thus far. There are four major things that we are aiming to accomplish in 2011:
- Getting our endorsed consultants page live
- We are working on an exciting new product that we hope will engage the community in a fun and valuable way
- We will start creating more interactive videos on SMNZ TV
- We are looking at hosting more events and seminars, shaking and disrupting the status quo a little bit [in a good way]
2010 has been a year of developing social media understanding here in New Zealand. In 2011 we will likely see this pick up in terms of more businesses dedicating more time and resources to not only learning about social media but implementing their own social media strategy.Location: One of the biggies on my radar is location-based services, however it seems that many businesses are yet to really come to grips with what sort of value location services might provide.When location platforms first arrived, most of the activity was around letting users' friends know where they were. As more businesses gained social media smarts, many began using it as their customer loyalty program, so people started receiving discounted products and services in return for their custom.2011 will see location services being further taken avantage of and businesses will find increasingly creative ways to monetize them.Social media smarts:As I mentioned, businesses both locally and globally are beginning to see social media as more than a fad, and that it's a space which is growing and reinventing itself every day. In 2011, we will see more businesses getting out of the passenger seat and into the driver's seat, having gathered enough information in the last two years from the social media bubble to venture out into the wilderness on their own.Targeting online influencers:This year we have seen companies identifying their brand champions based on such things as Twitter followers, Facebook influence and general social capital. This trend will continue in 2011, because now there is a tool out there which aggregates all this information, called Klout. Services like Klout will be hugely useful to businesses who want key influencers to champion their new product or service.The rise of the smartphone:Earlier this year I had feared that New Zealand may never be on the same level as the world to reap the full value of mobile social media, primarily because smartphones were so expensive. The last couple of months, however, has seen local telco 2Degrees taking steps towards ensuring the availability of cheap smartphones and affordable data. Hopefully we'll see this continue in 2011, giving all New Zealanders the opportunity to update their Facebook on the go.Facebook vs Google:Lastly, the battle for net supremacy between Google and Facebook will continue to rage on in 2011. Facebook emerged as a real competitor this year, after Google spent the past few years largely untouched. With news of Facebook and Google buying up various companies in attempts to outmuscle each other in this high-tech game of chess, no one is ready to say checkmate just yet.2011 will see Google concentrate more on implementing a social layer to its current products, as we have seen how effective Facebook has been with their 'like' footprint across the web. With Facebook, they will look to make their platform the utter be-all and end-all of web communities and look to improve on existing communication and connection technologies by making them even more personal.