Beyond Social – What’s Next?

Study after study continues to show that companies are integrating social into their communication plans. This year’s study by Chief Marketer found that 64% of 1,300 respondents said they were already integrating social media into marketing campaigns, and 22% who currently are not will be doing so in the next year.

And SmartBrief just recently partnered with market research firm Summus and released The State of Social Media for Business. You can access the top line themes of the study here. One key point from the study, 66.5% of businesses have adopted social media in the past 18 months, but less than 15% of businesses are measuring the ROI of their social media efforts.

As both of these studies show, we are getting closer and closer where all companies in some way are utilizing social tools. Here are a few things I see developing by the end of 2011.

• Vendors: We’ll see more, not less, of vendor offerings in the social space. As companies continue to use these tools more vendors will emerge with tools and services. Resources for measuring, tracking, managing and content management will not only showcase the rising importance of social media, but also point to an enormous accumulation of data. The challenge for communicators will be choosing the correct vendors to work with based on strategy and content. Your choices will be so you consolidate services with one vendor or do you work with multiple vendors? Both choices have their benefits but they also have disadvantages, so are you starting to plan?
• You will thank Apple: From the iPhone to the iPad more and more applications are being developed. That’s great, but what’s really been helpful is that more and more C-level executives are using these products. The result is they are asking, “What can we do using apps?” (Read this from CIO Magazine: CEOs to CIOs: We Need the iPad!). Even if your company is based on the popular BlackBerry device they too have a tablet being developed.  If you aren’t thinking about apps, now may be a good time to do some research. I suggest taking your IT and website teams to lunch and start benchmarking what other companies are doing.
• More integrated social communication: Social media has given a lot of capabilities and in some cases responsibilities to the individual. While your job responsibilities and titles will stay the same, more and more companies are trying to figure out whether to have a centralized or a decentralized social media strategy. I think truly successful companies will adopt a model that works for them culturally (neither model is right or wrong), but also learn that everyone in communications needs to think of how to leverage these tools. By the end of 2011 more people will have social media in their job descriptions but not necessarily their job title.
• Speaking of jobs…: I think by the end of 2011 we’ll see fewer and fewer job openings at corporations (not agencies) for Social Media directors. There’s a two-fold reason for this: 1.) Most of those jobs will be filled already 2.) Companies will just expect communicators to think and implement social media – it’s just part of your job description, or if it’s too specialized it will be outsourced.
• Data tsunami: If you think you have too much data now just wait. More of your customers are coming online, more are using social media, and more are expecting you to be social. All of this means you need to have someone (e.g. staff member, consultant) or some tool (e.g. Omniture, Hootsuite – we use both at CME Group) to help you wade through it all. Good communicators will know what they are looking for and how to find it, so start thinking about that now. In addition, if you’re a consultant in the measurement business 2011 will be a very good year for you.
• Crisis management v. risk management: There is a difference between crisis management and risk management. For crisis management, your team will need to be on top of what’s being said and how to rapidly respond. In order to manage risks you’ll need to integrate social media listening into your existing issues management plan. And you do have both a crisis and issues management plan already, right?

So what are your thoughts? Am I on the right track? Are you seeing something other than what I’m seeing? And of course let us know what you think will happen in this space in 2011.