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From the people I talk to, there seems to be no loss of enthusiasm for social networking – especially for Facebook. Hey, with a $15 billion valuation (based on an investment from Microsoft), it must be doing something right.
But what can we expect in 2008?
Someone who should know is Gary Hall, the president of Pringo Networks, which operates a social networking platform. According to him:
1. In order to maintain stickiness in 2008, brands will need to employ social media tools and user-generated content (UGC). To keep their competitive edge, they will be proactive in understanding and identifying their users' specific interests, providing a more relevant and feature-rich community.
2. The greatest growth in social media will be in affinity groups and niches. The largest social media sites will become less relevant and attractive to those who want social media to be intimate and useful, rather than broadly distributed.
3. Social media sites will reap the benefits from an increase in advertising dollars being spent, but consumers will reject advertising that is not tailored for their specific needs. The growth in highly targeted sites will attract advertisers looking for a quicker return on investment.
4. Customer-facing companies that do not employ social media tools in their external communications and customer relationship management strategies will lose to competitors who actively adopt these. Individuals will expect companies to leverage this type of technology so the consumer voice can more easily be heard.
5. A more mature audience will embrace online communities, even though the young early adopters acted as the initial catalyst for social media. Although growth in terms of quantity will still be largest among teens and 20-somethings, the highest percentage rise will come from parents of children who use social media, professionals and senior citizens, among others.
6. Mobile social media will take off. Up until now mobile services have played a minor role in the development of social media. Consumers will want to take social media with them everywhere, driving the development of more mobile applications.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-29-2007 @ 12:43PM
Find A Social Network said...
Niche social networks have experienced huge growth this year and this field will continue to grow in 2008. Companies and brands will build their own social networks to engage and market to targeted consumers.
We have recently launched a search engine that helps users find niche interest social networks and helps social network owners promote them.
Users search for sites related to whatever their interest is and webmasters submit their sites tagged with related keywords.
The idea is that due to the increasing popularity and proliferation of niche subject social networking sites thanks to Ning et al, users have a way of finding like-minded communities and these social networks receive targeted traffic that helps build user base and monetize.
Please take a look! We are still building the database. Feel free to register and submit your niche social network or social media site for free.
http://findasocialnetwork.com
12-31-2007 @ 7:49AM
James said...
I definitely agree with the trend of parents and seniors getting involved with social networking.
I recently joined Seniorocity [www.seniorocity.com] which is a great new social network for mature adults and senior citizens.
Seniorocity is much different from Facebook in terms of its members...since every member is over 40!