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TrendsSpotting Market
Research is now running
its third annual prediction
reports following major
trends in six categories.
We will be featuring the
predictions of digital and
marketing experts on the
big changes awaiting us in
the coming year.
This year we are adopting
a new “tweet style”
format, easier for you to
focus on, comprehend and
forward.
More in this series >
Technology | Mobile | Videos | eMarketing | Consumer Trends

Findings: Major trends in 2010 SM:
Across many of these predictions, we
have identified the following trends
suggested to influence 2010 Social Media:
Mobile, Location, Transparency,
Measurement, ROI, Privacy
Reflecting on 2009 predictions – not much
has changed.
We conclude that 2009 did not meet its
expectations. How about 2010?

Location, Augmented Reality, Privacy & Social Gaming
@petecashmore PETE CASHMORE
Founder, CEO
Mashable
Fueled by the ubiquity of GPS in modern smartphones, location-sharing services ..
Surge in enterprise spend for social platforms in late 2010. U.S. online
may become the breakout services of the year ... provided they're not crushed by
community software market will grow 63% in 2010 to $679 million.
the addition of location-based features to Twitter and Facebook.
Our whereabouts may optionally secure social media activities. They will realize
Businesses are looking for ways to be appended to every Tweet, blog comment,
photo be cheaper to purchase this software in the cloud
it will or video we post.
Augmented reality: The challenge for such services is to prove Sharepoint 2010)
Traditional enterprise software providers (such as Microsoft withtheir utility: They
have the this factor,"
will enter"cool market. but can they be truly useful?
Social gaming and virtual currencies: virtual buying and selling may be the route to
riches for some social media sites. The big players are seizing the mobile payments
More standard ways of measuring social business value .
opportunity.
Expect personal privacy -- or rather its continued erosion -- to be a hot media
topic of 2010.
Source: CNN

Private SN, Location, Mobile, Scalable, Rewards
@armano DAVID ARMANO
Senior Partner, Dachis Group
Author, Logic and Emotion
"Social media begins to look less social .. more "exclusive" - getting value .. while
filtering out the clutter”..
Corporations look to scale and uncover cost savings or serve customers more
effectively through leveraging social technology .(e.g.: Best Buy's Twelpforce ).
Networked activity will be local, mobile, encourage competition and reward
participants.
Your company will have a social media policy.
Mobile becomes a social media lifeline.
Sharing no longer means e-mail: Content providers will allow users the ability to
distribute content across their own networks (e.g. - NYTimes iPhone app).
Source: Harvard Business Review blog

Private SN, Location, Validation
@chrisbrogan CHRIS BROGAN
President,
New Marketing Labs
I see velvet rope social networks, where some kind of gating to keep out the
commons will occur.
I see a thousand specific Twitters popping up for places internally and externally,
each using OAuth to validate who we are.
Source: ZDNet

Social Business, Ads & Thought Leaders..
@peterkim PETER KIM
Managing Director, N.America
Dachis Group
@peterkim: Companies get serious about social media, elevating their focus to
social business.
@peterkim: Advertising infiltrates public social sites on a widespread scale,
souring experiences for many.
@peterkim: A new cadre of bonafide thought leaders emerges, with almost 100%
turnover from five years ago.

On Next Big Thing
Seth Godin Michael Litman Tamar Weinberg,
Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur Social Media Strategist Community & Marketing Manager
& Agent of change Consolidated PR Mashable
Seth Godin: folks that put in the time and energy to build a foundation over the
last 2 years online will be rewarded, while the latecomers will merely whine.
Seth Godin: A lot of people (who were not investing in an asset) will lose interest
in Twitter as the next shiny thing comes along.
@litmanlive: I believe that the next "big thing" will be a greater sense of
personalization and location-based offerings. We're starting to see this for example
in Foursquare.
@tamar: Content will be more widely dispersed, especially across mobile platforms
as phones are getting smarter.
@tamar: A bigger emphasis on Augmented Reality, giving consumers the ability to
find and buy products that they are interested in from wherever they are.
Source: Junta42

Status Updates Platform
@johnbattelle JOHN BATTELLE
Founder & Chairman
Federated Media
@johnbattelle: By the end of the year we'll have a new interface for status
updates that looks nothing like a microblog.

Mobmedia, Cyberdisinhibition
@mariansalzman MARIAN SALZMAN
President, N.America,Euro PR
Trend Spotter & Author
@mariansalzman: Mobmedia/Virtual Bullies - Social media sites allow for virtual
bullies + flash mob gatherings around disputes; heightened by celeb involvement.
@mariansalzman: Cyberdisinhibition - Based on #ERWWPR social media study, 43%
of Net users feel less inhibited online, behaving in ways they wldn‟t in person.

Real-time Reviews & Business On Social Media
@mzkagan MARTA KAGAN
Managing Director, US
Espresso- Brand Infiltration
@mzkagan: Real-time reviews will scare the pants off many a brand & foster a new
'radical-beta' mindset.
@mzkagan: “Tracking & alerting" become the new searching.
@mzkagan: Business finally admit that social media aint some fad for kids and B-
list movie stars.

Augmented Reality, Small Business &
Micro Targeting..
@danzarrella DAN ZARRELLA
Social & Viral Marketing Scientist
HubSpot
@danzarrella: IRL: With augmented reality and mobile social media, the real world
will be important again.
@danzarrella: Small Business Social Media - small business will discover the bang-
for-buck accountability of social media marketing.
@danzarrella: Micro targeting and personalization - businesses will begin to
leverage the wealth of data we share about ourselves to deliver individualized
messages.

Mobile, Location, Scalable
@emarketer eMARKETER
Digital Intelligence
@eMarketer
Social networking is one of the fastest-growing activities among mobile users and
has become a significant driver of Internet usage on mobile devices.
Gaining a voice in the conversations taking place across mobile social networks
will be challenging for marketers.
Most marketers are thinking through key issues, such as internal ownership and
scalability of mobile-social programs.
Budgeting and definitions of ROI likewise continue to evolve.
The biggest near-term opportunities will come from location-aware applications.
Search will get more social: real-time content in results, information from social
network friends to results, using collective information from other Web users
Source: eMarketer.com

On Content Marketing
@drewmclellan DREW McLELLAN
Founder and Author
The Marketing Minute
The good: As the economy continues to slowly recover, consumers are going to
reward those brand marketers who have been sharing content/expertise without
any strings attached.
The bad: Many just entering the content marketing arena will do so with the old
broadcast mentality… they will shout.. and turn off their potential audience.
The ugly: Content marketing isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. But many CFOs will
prematurely pull the plug on their content marketing efforts because the results are
not instantaneous. .
Source: Junta42

Secured, Clouds, Measurement
CAROLINE DANGSON
Digital Marketplace Research Analyst
IDC
Surge in enterprise spend for social platforms in late 2010. U.S. online community
software market will grow 63% in 2010 to $679 million.
Businesses are looking for ways to secure social media activities. They will realize
it will be cheaper to purchase this software in the cloud.
More standard ways of measuring social business value.
Source: ZDNet

Conversational Marketing, Content Distribution
@jasonfalls JASON FALLS
Social Media Strategist
Social Media Explorer
Conversational marketing will be the prevailing success tactic for brands. .
The one-way channels, will continue to be shunned and stagnate.
Twitter will see more consistent use from a core base of people and less hype -
more of a communications utility.
Making content highly portable is the key to engaging an ever-more-mobile
audience.
More will start to see the power of content distribution and customer engagement
through that content.
2009 was about learning SM. 2010 will be about figuring out how to use it well.
Source: Junta42, ZDnet

On Social Media & Relationships
@charleneli CHARLENE LI
Founder
Altimeter Group
Social media in 2010 will cease being the shiny new object and instead, become
part of the everyday lexicon of business.
The technology will begin to fade into the background so that people can focus on
the relationships that are created because of the technologies, not the
technologies themselves.
Source: ZDNet

Brand, Communities, Micro Content
@gauravonomics GAURAV MISHRA
CEO
2020 Social
Online communities will come of age in 2010.
Brand marketers will create compelling micro-content to seed these communities,
then run contests to invite consumers to interpret their brand, create their own
content.
Brand marketers investing in communities that are built around a bigger social
object: a lifestyle, cause or passion.
Source: Junta42

Premium, ROI, Experts
@marc_meyer MARC MEYER
Principal
Digital Marketing Response Group
@marc_meyer: Twitter will offer a premium level option that'll allow the creation
of hosted invite only discussions. .
@marc_meyer: Google will flex its muscle in the SM space by creating more
"social" tools & apps 2 compete w/ Facebook & Twitter.
@marc_meyer: Look for social to become less about the "what is it" and even more
about the ROI.
@marc_meyer: Expect to see more Fortune 500 and Inc 1000's companies making
large scale, visible social media mistakes.
@marc_meyer: There will continue 2 be a void in SM leadership as long as ppl
continue to dwell on who is & who isn't an expert.

Retailers Grapple with Measuring Social Commerce
@emarketer JEFFREY GARU
Senior Analyst
eMarketer
2010, retailers will become more serious about trying to measure social media‟s
impact on sales: how much a large fan base translates into sales or brand loyalty.
Source: eMarketer.com

Bottom Up Global Changes
SUPERNOVA
Jimmy Wales Alec Ross Craig Newmark
Founder Sr Advisor -Innovation Founder
WikiPedia State Department Craigslist
@jimmy_wales: the global nature of the internet.. people will come online from
India, China, Africa, South America- there's going to be a cultural impact as the
different cultures will come and mix and mingle online.
@alecjross: The democratized access to the tools of the digital age will be used for
economic empowerment and political actions in ways that were not possible five
and ten years ago.
@CraigNewmark: 2010 will bring the “tipping point” for social media. People will
see how easy it is to work with each other.
Source: Supernova Hub

On location & Foursquare
@scobleizer ROBERT SCOBLE
Technical Evangelist
Rackspace
We‟re going to see an explosion of things that use location.
Cool businesses that are hip are already doing Foursquare promotions now, but
that will boom in 2010.
Foursquare - the „cool kids‟ are on it, it feeds on itself. People are going to use the
system all of their friends are on.
Source: ZDNet

Transparency, Obsolete Social Media
@dmscott DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT
Marketing Strategist & Author
World Wide Rave
@dmscott: The term "social media" wanes as people realize we're just talking about
communicating.
@dmscott: A huge backlash against "snake oil salesmen" who spam people on
Twitter.
@dmscott: The fear of marketing on the web experienced by many organizations
continues.

Global Tensions
@roncallari RON CALLARI
Social Media Scientist
Global tensions will bubble up over into the social media space in 2010.
SNS will become a new battleground for opposing forces around the globe to
threaten and harass each other (e.g: Iranian Election Protests)
Source: Investorspot

10 Ways Social Media Would Change..
@ravit_ustrategy RAVIT LICHTENBERG
Founder & Chief Strategist
Ustrategy.com
SM will become a single, cohesive experience embedded in our activities and
technologies. SM innovation will no longer be limited by technology
Mobile will take center stage. Enterprises will shape the next generation of what
we've called "Social Media"
Expect an intense battle as people and companies look to own their own content.
ROI will be measured – and it will matter.
Augmented reality finally: real, cool and very bizarre online-offline integration
Women will rule social media. Social media will move into new domains.
Source: Read Write Web

Product Search On SNS
@equalman ERIK QUALMAN
Author
Socialnomics
@equalman: Facebook/Twitter will have some form of product search
functionality [onsite or via partnership].

Google ,Twitter & Facebook Privacy
@pgillin PAUL GILLIN
Writer, Author & Social Media Consultant
Principal at Paul Gillin Communications
@pgillin: Twitter's strategy to monetize its service gives Google the first real run
for its money.
@pgillin: New Facebook privacy policy sparks member backlash (at least we know
ONE of these predictions will be right!).

„Un-friending‟ Brands On Social Media
@adambroitman ADAM BROITMAN
Partner & Ringleader
Circ.us
@adambroitman: Consumers will un-friend all brands that don‟t add value.

Social Media Measurement
@cbensen CONNIE BENSEN
Director of Social Media & Community Strategy
Alterian
@cbensen: Social media monitoring will provide insight across all channels, as well
as making Social Media an active outbound marketing channel.
@cbensen: SM will shift from being experimental to having metrics and the loop
will be closed the loop so that SM Monitoring is necessary & actionable.

Transparency, Performance
Mike Arauz Nenshad Badoliwalla
Strategist Co-author
Undercurrent Driven to Performance
@mikearauz: We're moving into an age of transparency .
@mikearauz: The last decade was all about acquisition. The next one, will be all
about retention.
@mikearauz: No brand is immune, no matter how big or small. Transparency FTW!
@nenshad: Social media projects will need to tie their efforts to concrete
performance improvements in order to remain viable
Source: Junta42

Integrated Marketing, Monitoring, Brand Advocates
@adamcohen ADAM COHEN
Partner
Rosetta
@adamcohen: Social media tactics become integrated tools in the relationship
marketing arsenal.
@adamcohen: Companies struggle adapting processes for customer interaction in
marketing, sales, customer service & PR.
@adamcohen: Marketing programs focus more on activating brand advocates than
general customers.
@adamcohen: Social media monitoring industry consolidates and matures, drawing
closer to web analytics.

Social Media In Maslow Hierarchy
@danielwaisberg DANIEL WAISBERG
Head of Web Analytics
Easynet
@danielwaisberg: Social Networks got us to step 3 of Maslow hierarchy: Belonging.
Next challenge: management Esteem!

Monitoring, Branded Communities & Guidelines
@communitygirl ANGELA CONNOR
Journalist & Community Strategist
Author,18 Rules of Community Engagement
@communitygirl: Employees will find themselves facing strict social media
guidelines banning FB, YouTube or both.
@communitygirl: Online branded communities will outperform Facebook fan pages
and gain increased popularity. .
@communitygirl: The cost of popular social media monitoring software will
decrease as early adopters opt-out and newcomers flood the space.

Less Social, More “Social Aware”
@trendsspotting Dr. TALY WEISS
CEO and Head of Research
TrendsSpotting.com
Trends Research
@trendsspotting: 2010- the year “you‟re being followed”.
@trendsspotting: Facebook will soon launch its search. By providing good search
capabilities & localization - it will change not only the face of Facebook - it will
take social networks to new levels.
@trendsspotting: Remember the years consumers felt that internet is not a safe
shopping place? 2010 is the year internet users will think about safety with every
move they take.
@trendsspotting: Blogs will continue to flourish as people realize micro-blogging
needs a “home base”.

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Did You Know
New Oxford American Dictionary‟s 2009 Word of The Year is
Read More On The “unfriend” Social Cycle >>

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