The Power of Social Media and Trends for 2011 and Beyond

Like it or not, social media is here to stay, and no, when I say social media, I am not talking about only Facebook and Twitter, I am talking about all social media sites, from the ones you know about to the ones you may not, like Bebo, Flixter, Flickr and Gowalla.  These four social media sites are different, and it is really important to understand this.   For instance, Flixter is a site for you to share movie reviews, Flickr is a site for you to upload photos, and Gowalla is a site for you to tell your friends where you are and perhaps even what you're eating (if you like).  See a theme here?

The power of social media belongs to you.

Think about that statement for a second, just think...

Back in the 90s, if you wanted to send email (at least in the US), you had to pay America Online (AOL) to use its service that allowed you to send an email so you could send e-letters faster than ever before.  Great concept.  No one had any beef about paying.  Though, you couldn't upload videos, send videos, you didn't have a choice of email services (Google, Hotmail) and it certainly wasn't free.

Fast forward to today.  Email is free, and different websites, like the Flickr's and Gowalla's of the world allow you to share photos and adventures while sending messages to your friends in real-time.  Yes, Facebook allows you to do a lot of things at once, from uploading videos, sending messages and even selling items (i'll get to this in a minute), but it's the growth of social media competition and the varied services offered and the fact that you have the power to choose what website to go to and what content you see that allows me to predict with confidence that social media isn't going anywhere so fast.

Don't believe me?  I didn't expect you to.  Watch the video above (uploaded on YouTube by socialnomics09) for more on what I am talking about.

On Social Media Explorer, Stephanie Schwab posted an extremely informative article that explains where social media is heading in this year and thereafter.

The five trends include:

1. Consumer Content Creation (social media users choosing what content seeps through to their Facebook walls and profiles)
2. Niche Location (sites like Gowalla and Foursquare are examples, and businesses will realize their potential: targeting certain markets based on location while also gaining quick access to potential customer background info?  Sounds like money to be made)
3. Social Gaming (plenty of people play Farmville, but businesses are already integrating their brands into the games themselves, such as Farmer's Insurance being one case)
4. QR Codes (allow you and me to send texts or emails on our phones, but is also called "mobile tagging" with the potential of tracking where you are, similar to GPS devices
5. Social Commerce

No brief explanation for social commerce because I want more than a sentence to talk about this one.

How do sites like Facebook and now certainly Twitter become potentially worth millions, woops, I'm sorry, billions of dollars?  Ads right?  Of course, they make money from you visiting and clicking away on those sponsored ads on the right hand side of the screen.

But now (get ready for that word again...) you get to earn money on sites like Facebook as well, or at least use it directly to sell for your business.  Ever heard of Groupon?  I certainly hope so.  If you have a small to medium sized business, you may find that at times you need to earn more money this month as you are struggling to pay those overhead costs (or you could just want more money, yeah let's stick with that).  You need to sell fast, but how?  Groupon allows you to post a "deal" on their website that first needs to be approved by Groupon.  Say you run a comedy club, you can offer a 30 percent discount from your original price for two tickets at your club, and maybe even throw in a free drink to entice customers even more to buy that deal.  Your comedy club and Groupon split the proceeds from the deal that was bought by customers.

Groupon is a fantastic business idea that is exploding, and fast.  The brilliant and fastest growing website in the world, it helps out those struggling small to medium businesses, and is a revolutionary concept if you ask me.

Facebook is unique at the moment (since they are one of the first) in that businesses are using the popular social networking site to sell their merchandise.  Take the National Basketball Association for example:

    Taken March 6, 2011 From The Next Web


The NBA integrated their store into Facebook.  Why?  Not just for high visibility, but because people like to share and talk about their purchases on social networking sites.  Couple the fact if you're the NBA, a fan can buy your product on one of the most popular websites in the world and even hit the "like" button right after, and you have a tremendous business opportunity.

Interested in this or want to aid your business more? Definitely have a look at the full article and relevant links.