What’s in store for Social Media? A brief 2010 forecast. Peer Response #2

1.) Corporations will continue to leverage social media: In the upcoming years, we can definitley expect to see more and more companies scaling social initiatives beyond the standard communications routes.  Best Buy is a great example of a corporation using Twelpforce to leverage hundreds of employees who provide customer support and help on Twitter.  Staff is also managed through a custom built system that monitors who participates.  Many companies have already joined this growing trend, as they look to cut costs and serve customers more effectively via social technology.

2.)  Mobile lunch breaks: Smartphone sales are expected to rise to 300 million in the next four years.  At the same time, the amount of companies that continue to ban social networks at work continues to rise.  According to a recent study, 54% of companies ban Facebook and Twitter at work.  With these two factors in mind, it’s been predicted that we will see a rise in the number of employees taking “Social media lunch breaks,” on their mobile devices.  If employees are disconnected from social networks in the office, they will certainly be looking for ways to fulfill their social media addictions via their smartphones during work and lunch breaks.  Maybe mobile phones breaks will replace the traditional cigarette break?

3.)  Learning in a Virtual World will increase: We can expect to see more and more social networks moving to the virtual world space.  Additionally, more institutions, including Universities, will join this space to create virtual campuses, online classes and virtual teaching environment.  The government sector will also adopt virtual worlds as pilot programs, just as the military has with America’s Army, a virtual web-based environment.

Of course, 2010 has a lot more in store for the ever-expanding world of social media.  Many industries will continue to leverage and migrate toward social media platforms as a way to cut costs and serve employees and staff more effectively.  People will continue to adopt new mobile technologies and professional and personal social networking will become more integrated.  Finally, the virtual world will spread across many sectors offering a new way of conducting business and creating relationships.

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ES

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