My social media predictions for 2009

Over the course of the holidays I took some “unplugged” time to do some reading and play guitar. My intent was to clear my mind a bit and get my thoughts settled for what looks like a busy 2009 year coming up for the strategic social media side of our business (CEPSM). How can it possibly be busy you ask?

• Participating in social media is significantly cheaper than “buying” traditional media
• Social media channels are highly measurable when proper objectives are set ahead of time
• Social media allows organizations to reach niche audiences
• Social media has unlimited reach and eternal visibility
• Social media is a perfect marriage for public sector and non-profit initiatives; Nobody is trying to sell you anything.

So what’s the downside (if you could call it that)? Time investment and dedication.

Social media engagement actually forces organizations to think strategically in their marketing endeavors as opposed to simply pushing out “stuff” . What do I mean by “stuff”? Brochures, pamphlets, posters, billboards, tv ads, etc…Social media participation puts you in the spotlight and in front of the mic not just at a press conference, but rather 24/7.

Here are some of the key things that I think will be crucial for you to pay attention to in 2009:

• Mobile Web Apps…forget WAP browsers and scaled down text websites, I’m talking full out browsing capability of new 3G phones such as the iPhone, Blackberry Storm, Google Phone, HTC Touch, etc…You should be creating applications dedicated to this platform (think Google Mobile).
• Netbook computers. You’ve heard it on the news, laptop sales have finally surpassed desktops. However even within the laptop segment, there is an incredible sub-segment of something called netbooks, which are essentially light-weight, low-cost, very small laptops created primarily for web browsing. My prediction is that there will finally be a closing of the remaining gap between rich and poor in terms of Internet accessibility.
• Growth of Lifestreams. I must admit, even for a social media junkie like myself, adoption of using lifestreams has been slow (I’m still waiting for the perfect platform that rises once the dust settles). However this is clearly a logical next step for social media users. Essential it’s a chronological aggregated view of your life activities both online and offline. Rather than logging into Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Bebo, etc…you simply log into one LifeStream application such as FriendFeed or Plaxo and all your updates are aggregated into a new custom “lifestream” feed.
• Twitter and microblogging in general. All you Twitter deniers out there should at the very least be “listening in” through filtering tools such as Twitter Search. Twitter grew by 752% in 2008. There are now 4.5 million daily users. My prediction is 10 million users by the end of the 2009.

For those of you worried about the ongoing “lack of access” issue. I personally think that there will be widespread unblocking of social media related web sites in government organizations (starting with Com branches). Those of you in government probably think I must be dreaming. Well guess what? I’m seeing it with my own eyes. Numerous ambitious branches within government  have prepared cases to senior management as to why certain sites need to be unblocked. One by one, permission is being granted to individual users. My prediction is that this will start trickling down as government wakes up to the new reality. If you’re worried about people wasting time at work…good luck solving that one unless you ban mobile phones and the Internet in general. Even then, there’s always solitaire! Someone who wants to waste time will ALWAYS find a way to do so…

What are some of your key predictions for this year?

California earthquake LIVE tweeting!

Today I had a meeting with my Public Safety Canada client (Emergency Preparedness Branch) , whom I’m currently training on social media engagement. We’re in the midst of finalizing a social media strategy and choosing specific online tactics that will help Canadians (or rather, a specific target audience of Canadians) be more informed of how to properly prepare for an emergency (i.e how to put together or buy an emergency kit).

One social media channel we discussed as a best-practice example was the ever-popular Twitter. The shear amount of real-time conversations happening on this channel during disasters or conflicts is absolutely incredible. What’s more, all of these conversations can be filtered to your heart’s content using Twitter Advanced Search. You can search by location, by km radius, by language, by tone, you name it…

Roughly 20 minutes ago, I happened to be checking my Twitter contact updates and noticed someone “tweet” about a quake in California. This caught my attention and so I refreshed my list and a few more people started “re-tweeting” the same thing. When C.C. Chapman (a fellow social media guru who is usually well ahead of the news) tweeted about the quake a few seconds later, that triggered me to check Twitter Search for the term “earthquake“. Low and behold, the results started pouring in. Within seconds there were an additional 30, 90, 150, 570, 1669 live tweets (and still counting) about people in various Southern California cities experiencing the 4.5 magnitude quake.

Have a look yourself and try tracking the conversation back to the original “tweet”. Note that this link will cease to be relevant contextually to this blog post within a few days. Eventually, simply searching for the term “earthquake” will be too generic. In which case you will have to go to Twitter Advanced Search and specify today’s date (January 8th, 2009) in your search criteria for “earthquake”.