Social Media Predictions Preview 2011

It’s that time of year where predictions peer into the future. With 2011 only days away, here’s a quick glance at what’s to come for social media in 2011. How do you see social media advancing in 2011?

Junta42.com

The biggest collection, with over 100 predictions, comes from Junta42.com. Packaged by Zmags, the 2011 Social Media publication may be viewed online or saved as a 39 page .pdf. Because that’s a lot to sort through, I culled out a few predictions for you to preview here.

“Marketers will finally realize that social media are just tools — true success comes from developing a real-time mindset.”
David Meerman Scott

” . . . brand marketers – and C-Suites for that matter – will begin to finally ‘get,’ and ultimately embrace, the idea that it is much better for their customers to tell their stories and share their stories than for them to continue to try to control the entire message.” Lisa Petrelli

“Brand marketers will get back in touch with the most forgotten content producers on Social Earth: journalists.” Laurent François

“Tools, networks and services that cater to the role of the curator will emerge, with several already leading the way. Storify, Curated.by, Pearltrees, and Paper.li are becoming the coveted services of choice amongst curators as they not only enable the repackaging and dissemination of information, they do so in captivating and engaging formats.” Brian Solis

“In the B2B world, marketers are going to scramble to give away as much useful information as possible. Anecdotal evidence indicates that helpfulness translates into awareness which generates leads and sales. If you keep too much information close to the vest, people just ignore you. Look for a lot of new white papers, ”how-to” guides, online courses and big info graphics. On the consumer side, it’ll be the year of the app.” Paul Gillin

“With AT&T introducing a basic phone with browsers, smartphones will be accessible to every pay grade, including the homeless, which provides some people to skip right over the computer.” Gini Deitrich

“In 2010, creating and distributing content advanced from a to-do list item to a top priority. With budgets and attention in place, 2011 will be a year where frequency, quality and relevancy not only matter, but will be essential to maintaining a competitive edge. Brand marketers will stretch out creatively to reach collaborators within their customer community with spokespersons who represent and model the brand in real life. Events will be created as content-drivers that leverage multiple networks all at once for long-reach playback.” Barbara Rozgonyi

In other places . . . .

Social Media 2011 Privacy Puzzle and Search Will Stick Around via gigaom.com

Four Social Media Predictions, Timing Tweets cia oneforty.com

Seven Important Social Media Trends for 2011 via TheNextWeb
Group Buying and Question and Answer Sites

Your Turn: How would you like to see social media change in 2011?

Credit for the inspiration for this question goes to Allan Schoenberg who asked a similar question at Social Media Club Chicago‘s December event.

Image provided by Shutterstock.com