We all wish we had a crystal ball we can consult whenever we need to peek into the future.  Short of offering our peers that magic crystal, we connected with some of the best and brightest to ask them to predict what 2012 has in store for us.  We compiled the collective wisdom of 34 renowned experts in the field of strategy, marketing and technology in our free eBook: 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions.  We asked about the top social marketing developments, new technologies, biggest challenges, and top news resources.  Here’s a peek into the biggest social marketing developments you need to prepare for this year.  Your magic keyword cloud reads: integration, mobile, new influence, relevancy marketing, social business revolution, real-time analytics, convergence, and trust as a social currency.

The Year of Integration – Paul Gillin, the author of Social Media Marketing for the Business Customer, sees 2012 as the year when social marketers would stop delegating social to junior managers.  He predicts a new generation of integrated marketing programs that will be “much more sophisticated that anything we’ve seen in the past”.  Jay Baer, Laura Fitton, Steve Rubel, and Robert Collins agree. Robert Collins of Social Media Breakfast goes on to say that “social movements and programs will become more integrated within existing business processes and become the driving agent behind purpose-driven product innovation, lead generation, sales, R&D, customer service, market research, communications, brand development, company culture, and, yes, marketing”.

Convergence: Pamela Johnston from the Lahey Clinic and Andrew Patterson from Major League baseball see the biggest development in 2012 in the convergence between the worlds of marketing and IT.  Especially in healthcare, according to Pamela, “these two distinct teams are learning from and about each other in ways that will make us smarter, faster and more patient-centric in the years to come”. Andrew sees Facebook and the open graph providing the context to make “our digital marketing efforts stick.”

The Social Business Revolution – Brian Solis, the author of The End of Business as Usual, joins Matthew Grant of MarketingProfs in saying that in 2012 companies of all sizes will need to “transform their business and existing infrastructure, and reverse engineer the impact of business objectives and metrics.” Matthew goes on to predict that corporate sites will be better and more deeply integrated with social media properties “bringing with it a more seamless experience as you move from the social media spokes to the proprietary hub.”

Real-time – Globally recognized marketing strategist David Meerman Scott predicts that our ability to harness real-time in all aspects of marketing will be the true sign of the new nimble marketing organization in 2012. Marketers’ need to react instantly to breaking news, changes on their websites and negative customer feedback, will give rise to a “new mentality, infrastructure and workflows to meaningfully participate in real time.”

Relevancy marketing –Jason Falls, the author of No Bullshit Social Media, Stacy Debroff, Stephen Murphy see 2012 as the year of relevancy marketing.  Jason Falls predicts that adding customer relationship management and tying social CRM functionality to marketing efforts will improve “our ability as marketers to hit relevant audiences with relevant messages at relevant times and in relevant places.”

Mobile as a game-changer – Debi Kleiman, David Berkowitz, and Mark Lazen converge on mobile as the true game-changer in 2012.  Debi Kleiman defined mobile’s role as follows: “Social marketing use cases and the kind of data that can be gleaned when people are using social on their phones will require brands to completely rethink how they connect and communicate with consumers.”

Influence and Metrics: If we had to pick one area that is going to experience the most change, it would have to be that of metrics and influence.  Dave Peck, Ekaterina Walter, Marc Meyer, Michael Pace, Jonas Klit Nielsen, Tim Hayden expect that brands will be asking their agencies, vendors and internal stakeholders the real ROI questions and will be demanding the tools to measure the value. Ekaterina Walter predicts that “brands will need a way to feed these (ROI) metrics into one solution, which will aggregate, analyze and identify the right metrics that will help teams make the right decisions

Social maturity: Jim Storer, Doug Haslam, and Lora Kratchounova see 2012 more companies entering the social maturity stage in 2012. Jim predicts that companies will have “a more innate understanding of what they need to do in social media”, and will be more specific about where they allocate budgets within social media.  Jim and Lora see a shortage of experienced and talented community as more and more organizations seek to leverage social strategies.

Trust as a social currency – Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics and the newly printed Digital Leader, predicts 2012 will be the year “where digital leadership transcends privacy”. He sees the winning social network providers as those that “both individuals and companies trust.”

As you contemplate your plans for 2012, we encourage you to learn from the best and use their insights to inform your thinking, strategies and approach – download the free 2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions and let us know what you think.  Best of luck in 2012.

Mike Lewis

@BostonMike

We all wish we had a crystal ball we can peek into and tell the future.  Short of counting on miracles to lead our way, the team at Awareness connected with some of the best and the brightest in marketing to ask them the difficult questions around what 2012 has in its social marketing store for us. 34 marketing strategists – globally recognized leaders such as David Meerman Scott (@dmscott), Brian Solis (@briansolis), Erik Qualman (@equalman) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), brand marketers such as Ekaterina Walter at Intel (@Ekaterina) and Michael Pace at Constant Contact (@mpace101), and marketing advisors and consultants from top agencies such as Edelman, Mindjumpers, Holland-Mark, and Raidious, gave us their time and shared their insights and prognosis for our eBook on 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions.  We can’t thank them enough for their thoughts and support of our community.

The 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions is organized in six parts:

-        Part One: Predictions for the biggest (social) marketing developments in 2012.

-        Part Two: The role of “big data” in (social) marketing next year

-        Part Three: Expectations around key new technology that will likely have the most impact on (social) marketing in North America as well as globally;

-        Part Four: The role of mobile in (social)

-        Part Five: The top challenge for marketers engaged in social next year

-        Part Six: The top marketing news resources these experts consult to stay abreast of news and developments in social marketing

Expert Spotlight: Here’s what globally recognized marketing strategist David Meerman Scott shared with us:

-        The Biggest Social Media Development in 2012: “Social media gives us the ability to communicate instantly, yet most marketers have not developed the communication skills to address real time,” observes globally recognized marketing strategist David Meerman Scott. “Marketers have been trained with a campaign mentality, spending weeks planning, designing and executing in a sequential manner. Social marketing is changing that. We now need the ability to react instantly to breaking news, changes on our websites and negative customer feedback. Marketers need a new mentality, infrastructure and workflows to meaningfully participate in real time.”

-        The Role of “Big Data”: “Data has been with us for a long time,” observes David Meerman Scott, “but it is only recently that marketers are realizing they need sophisticated tools to harness that data and make sense and use of it. As a result, marketing departments will add a new job function that will play a role similar to that of bond traders in financial institutions in that they will rely on instant, real-time data to make informed decisions. The marketing ‘bond traders’ will be analytics experts who will look at three types of real-time data: news feeds from sources such as Dow Jones, Reuters and Bloomberg; social data from platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google +, YouTube, blogs and LinkedIn; and data from websites to answer key questions such as number of people visiting your web properties, content they are interacting with, the impact of reorganizing content and presentation, and speed of response to close rates.”

-        Key New Technology to Impact Marketing in 2012: Marketing analytics. “A modern marketer going into 2012 – 2014 will need an analytics team that understands, lives and breathes data,” says David.

-        Role of Mobile on Marketing in 2012:  “Mobile devices are certainly important, and next year is going to be about the ability to add location to the mobile experience,” shares David.

How does David stay in touch with the constant changing landscape of marketing?  “Conferences,” he says“…talking to the people who are implementing innovative ideas, CMOs and CEOs, public relations and marketing agency leaders.” To read what other experts had to say about 2012, download our free eBook 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions.

David Meerman Scott

About David Meerman Scott (@dmscott ): David is a marketing strategist, seminar leader, and keynote speaker. His book The New Rules of Marketing & PR opened people’s eyes to the new realities of marketing and public relations on the Web. Six months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list and published in 26 languages. David has live and worked in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Boston and has presented at hundreds of industry conferences and events in over twenty countries. Read his blog at http://www.webinknow.com.

Let us know your thoughts.  What do you think is in store for us marketers in 2012?  Where do you see the biggest opportunities?  What do you think will keep you up at night?

Let’s continue the discussion in the comments below, on Twitter at hashtag #2012Awareness, on Facebook at Social Media Marketing Best Practices, or on LinkedIn at the Social Media Marketing Mavens Group. To a successful 2012!

Mike Lewis
@bostonmike

Erik recently gave the keynote speech at they digital event of the year in Norway; Web Forum 2011. The comedian MC, Åsleik Engmark, wrote this little poem which is quite humorous moments after Erik delivered his keynote. If you pay close attention you can see shout outs to James Taylor, Gary Vaynerchuk, United Breaks Guitars and the Old Spice Guy.

Erik Qualman a world web sailor,
selling social ideas to Mr. James Taylor.

A pretty tall guy with hard working skills,
cause there ain’t such things as magic pills.

Just learn from Erik, and do it well,
listen – interact – react and sell!

Go for Socialnomics; go for the win,
cause according to the Pope, Facebook is not a sin.

If you want your customers to smell really nice,
promote a deodorant like that good Old Spice.

If you want your followers to come to you and stay,
start to run your videos the New Jersey wine-blog way!

We all know what to do know, if the guitar gets heavy scratches,
and a toilet beer-can shelf for hockey matches.

So when’s the next book coming Erik, I’m a real fan,
thank you for enlightening us…Mr. Equalman!!

Erik Qualman delivers motivational keynote on social media

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Greetings from Oslo Norway.  I’m here giving the keynote at Web Forum 2011.  It struck me as I watched some Norwegian toddlers attempting to ice skate for the first time that we can learn something from them.  They kept falling down, but they immediately got back up and tried again.  We need to do the same when it comes to digital marketing.  We need to fail forward, fail fast, fail better.  The only way to increase our rate of learning is to increase our rate of failure.

Also, kids were helping each other get back up on their skates.  Adults can’t do it alone digitally so look for and take that helping hand when needed and more importantly provide that helping hand without being asked.

Since we are speaking of ice skating and hockey, you should definitely check out hockey fanatic Guy Kawasaki’s latest book Enchantment.  It is a must read.

Qualman Amazon

Britney Spears is popular on Twitter

Whether Guy or Brittney Spears or Lance Armstrong  have 94,000 or 550,000 followers, they are A-Listers and people want to hear what they have to say.  It’s not because it’s Twitter, it’s because most of these celebrities previously had a platform.  Now, there will be a few new “A Listers” that result simply from Twitter, these will be few and far between however.  Guy Kawasaki is being helped greatly by Twitter, because he is being aggressively smart.

But, what about the rest of us?  If we have 1,500 followers are any of them really listening?  I’d argue that most are likely not.  However, it is still a huge marketing tool and the nobodies are now the new somebody for the following reason.  Twitter is free.  Hence, if you have 1,500 followers and are a local plumber, most likely most aren’t listening.  However, as long as at least one person is that is all that matters, because of the simple fact that it’s free.  If that one person has a plumbing issue, you as the Plumber now have a shot, especially if you acquired these followers simply by limited your search.twitter.com query to people within a 25 mile radius.

The biggest use right now is 1) big businesses following what is being said about their company – see Zappos, JetBlue, Comcast, etc. 2) Celebrities catering to their following by giving realtime updates – see Lance Armstrong Twitter’s about collarbone 3) Individuals attempt to promote themselves, generate a following and make money

And it’s the last point that may eventually cause Twitter to become Tiresome.  Just like on Facebook you X out the person that is constantly talking about their turtle, bad hair day, etc. on Facebook, the same holds true here.   Is Dale Carnegie rolling over in his grave, because everyone on Twitter is trying to be heard, when the key to winning friends and influencing people is actually listening?

Part of the reason that Twitter is so popular is that some of it’s effectiveness and cool factor is aided by the fact that not everyone is on it.  What could I possibly mean by this?  In January we sent over 6,000 students (via Smithsonian Student Travel) on educational tours to Washington DC for the historic inauguration.  In the past it would have been difficult to get major media outlets attention.  However, it was easy to do with Twitter.  NPR, MSNBC and PBS immediately replied to our tweet, expressing interest in hearing from our middle school student travelers and their teachers.   Now, only two months later.  I’ve #JetBlue about my concern that their TVs may not work for my flight this afternoon and this is crucially important as I booked on JetBlue soley for the reason that I could watch MarchMadness on DirectTV.  My concern was that the TV’s only worked about 50% of the time on this route and could they try to take steps to ensure they would be functioning…instead of hearing tweet, tweet, I heard cricket, cricket.  It was cool when companies and even CEO’s could respond real time, and some still do, but as more and more people join on Twitter that one-to-one will become less and less until the companies can ramp up.  And unfortunately instead of getting a witty and salient reply from a CEO or well-informed employee that took Twittering up with consumers because it was cool, you will most likely get a reply from a call center in New Dehli (should we call them Tweet Centers?).

Now, before I get tons of hate mail, there is a need for micro-blogging tools like Twitter, but it’s somewhere in-between poor e-mail (Google’s Eric Schmidt’s words) and the Greatest Thing ever.  I still tweet, because the upside is still greater than the downside, and oh, by the way please follow me @equalman.

1. Be a Better Google

Google owns close to 100-percent market share in the search engine wars because it’s the best at helping us find what we’re looking for. While it’s the best, it still isn’t very good.

If you search for someone famous or something factual, a Wikipedia page is likely the top result. That’s why more people go straight to Wikipedia or use tools such as Powerset.

After performing a Google search for a product or service, you’re bombarded with advertisements all touting the same thing in 35 characters or less — cheapest fares! best value! lowest price guaranteed! buy now! — with the top advertising placements going to those that generate the most revenue over the long term for Google rather than the most relevant result for you.

Everyone receiving the same search results is analogous to going to Nordstrom to buy a dress and the sales clerk offering you selections without determining what size you are.

Let’s say that we’re in the market to purchase a baby seat for our newborn. Do we care more about what our friends recommend, or what Google recommends? If you have good friends, I’m sure you respect your friends’ opinions much more.

This means there’s plenty of opportunity for Facebook. They already have the technology (Facebook Beacon) to track user purchases on Web sites outside of Facebook (Beacon can track books I purchase on Amazon.com, for example).

As a user, it’s much more helpful for me to see a list of results of what baby seats my friends purchased, how much they paid, and what their reviews are, combined with supplier ads (think Google sponsored ad listings) than the Google results today — results that don’t have anything about what my friends think.

Google recognizes this deficiency and has released Google Suggest, which enables users with Google accounts (mainly Gmail) to rate and comment on the search results. If Facebook can cobble the good technology they already have (Connect, Beacon, etc.), then they could literally steal billions of dollars in revenue from Google.

2. Let Facebookers Take Ownership of Brands

Long before the advent of social media, people have defined themselves by the brands they associate with, whether it’s a designer clothing label or car make and model. Facebook enables more transparency into this as the social graph can easily see when their friends join a Prada group or Land Rover fan page.

Generation X through Z take ownership of brands like never before. Facebook should recognize this and make it part of users’ profile data: What 5 brands do you associate with? This helps fellow Facebookers have a better understanding of that person while opening the revenue door for Facebook. A person who lists Apple, Zappos, Audi, Lacoste, and Guinness is much different than someone who lists Honda, Applebee’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Wrangler, and AOL.

For the revenue piece, Facebook could simply include, “Would you like to be alerted of specials for any of these brands?” It’s much less intrusive to receive a notification within Facebook than e-mail spam to your inbox. Besides, Gen Y and Gen Z don’t use e-mail as a primary form of communication.

3. Enhanced Facebook Gifts

One of the savviest business decisions Facebook made was charging $1 for little icons that range from cupcakes to hearts. The user pays $1 for these “gifts” and sends them to their friend. This is 100 percent profit for Facebook.

They’ve even allowed business, including Skittles and Coors Light, to sponsor icons. Along these business lines, Facebook could take this a little further by supplying something of material value to the user and to the product sponsor. This could be as simple as sending a downloadable iTunes song or Verizon ringtone that the gifter pays for.

Imagine how many of these would occur last minute on Valentine’s Day alone (trust me, men don’t plan): “I just wanted to tell you this song reminds me of you.” Or you could send your buddy a quick icon of a six-pack of Corona that has a redeemable coupon code. The user benefits because they can give a gift of substance, and Facebook benefits by increasing the amount of gifts given while they take a percentage of the revenue.

Lastly, the supplier/advertiser benefits by selling more products and increasing their brand awareness. The advertiser would pay Facebook a percentage every time a “gift” is purchased. Since this would result in revenue for the advertiser, it’s more of a CPA buy, which mitigates risk from them while putting money into Facebook’s pockets.

4. Small Business Functionality

Facebook should add e-commerce functionality to their fan pages by creating a new offering: merchant pages. They can set up credit card transactions and other fulfillment items/hooks.

Even though we’re almost a decade removed from the ’90s, small businesses still struggle to figure out how to inexpensively sell and fulfill their products and services online. Facebook merchant pages could complement existing small business Web sites or be their exclusive presence. Facebook would generate revenue by taking a micro-payment portion of the transactions.

Merchants would welcome an easy and cost-effective offering like this from Facebook. It would also network well with item number one listed above. Isn’t that what being social is all about?