How Social Media Brand Pages Could Evolve in 2012
2011 was a very interesting year for social media. During 2010, we saw brand pages engaging in what was essentially a digital land grab, investing in social media advertising and engagement campaigns as a means of attracting the biggest audience, in the hope of beating their competitors to it. In contrast, 2011 was almost entirely about nurturing those communities that were developed in 2010 – many brands sought the expertise of a digital PR or social media agency to engage with their communities in a coordinated way, as a means of improving brand awareness and propensity to engage/convert.
As we move into 2012, it perhaps makes sense to use the conclusions drawn from 2011 to make some predictions as to what 2012 may hold for social media marketing:
Advertising
It can be predicted that certainly from Facebook’s perspective, advertising is going to be one of if not its biggest revenue stream in 2012. Now that brands have paid to accumulate their communities within pages over the course of 2010/2011, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm may now force brands to also pay to reach and engage their fans on an ongoing basis too. Twitter’s promoted tweets will continue to play a big part for brands, giving visibility amongst a massively overcrowded network, and Google+ will probably roll out its own advertising platform that will either be part of Adwords, or will run in parallel. This will be a big step in the networks ability to contest with Facebook.
Aesthetics
With Timeline functionality currently in the process of being rolled out to the Facebook user community (with the exception of those clever folk who have it already), it’s probable that a big revamp of brand pages will follow. This will be massively beneficial to brands, which have seen brand pages stagnate to an extent when compared to the grandeur and creativity of the new user timelines. Google+ still has a long way to go in terms of aesthetics and may perhaps do more over the next 12 months to further differentiate Google+ brand pages from user profiles. Twitter has just undergone a big revamp itself, so we could expect some more minor tweaks but it’s doubtful that anything major will change in Twitter in 2012.
Applications
Applications are expected to be added to Google+ this year, given the success of the functionality in Facebook and the potential for adoption and innovation by brands. When this will happen is difficult to tell, but should be within the next six months. Facebook’s switch to Timeline has also affected applications, with a far greater focus now on verb related applications such as “listening” (Spotify) or “reading” (various newspapers such as The Guardian). The onus will be on brands to use these verbs as a means of attracting more attention to their own content. With regard to Twitter, although applications may have a place within brand pages, this evolution is unlikely to come soon, perhaps at the end of the year.
Interactivity
Engagement is now the life of brand presences within social media – without it the process would be almost pointless. When it comes to Facebook, 2012 will bring a new requirement to engage fans on a much more regular basis as a means of maintaining both their interest and also visibility against the EdgeRank algorithm. Google+ currently has no such algorithm, so this may enable it to gain some ground on Facebook over the course of 2012. Twitter will hopefully see brands investing in the resource to use brand feeds to their full potential, by engaging in more one-to-one interactions and supplying a wider range of content.
Integration with other digital media
This is perhaps one of the areas where we could see the most innovation in 2012. Google+ has already proved that video and photography can be integrated almost seamlessly within social media, and has developed a strong photography community as a result. Brands in Facebook may seek to integrate cloud services such as movie rentals and other digital content as a means of driving downloads and revenue. Google+ will likely seek to strengthen its ties with other Google services (search, maps, YouTube , etc), whereas Twitter’s integration plans are quite difficult to predict, given that it is currently integrated with almost all digital services via its API.
Overall, 2012 is certainly anticipated to be a year full of change and innovation in social media (as always), whilst also being a massive year of consolidation for Facebook and Twitter and growth for Google+. Google+ needs to make this year count as much as possible, since it is essentially the new network on the block and is as such much more susceptible to failure when compared to Facebook and Twitter. In addition, other social networks may arise from new innovations and technology to become the next generation and rival the current big three, just as Facebook did with Myspace. Only time will tell.
Guest Post by: Alex Smith is a digital account manager at integrated PR, social media and SEO agency Punch Communications, which provides PR, search and social media expertise for a global client base.
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