Social Marketing Trends: Bing, Google+ and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Influence 2012

Posted on Jan 4, 2012 in Marketing | 1 comment

By Lisa Joy Rosner, Chief Marketing Officer, NetBase,

I‘ve lived in Silicon Valley for twenty years—longer than I’ve lived anywhere else—and the whole time I’ve been a B2B high-tech marketer, marketing marketing solutions to marketers. They include (get ready for the acronyms—ERP, CRM, BI, FPM, E-Comm, and now SMA) for B2B and B2C brands both large and small, so I’m expected to be on top of all kinds of marketing trends. Lately I’ve become obsessed with all things social, both because I’m the CMO at a social analytics company and because I use social to do my job.

Sometimes, I can spot trends from miles away. For example, during the dot-com era, as soon as I saw the dreaded Pets.com “sock puppet,” I knew the bubble would burst any minute. Although, there’s no way I would have prognosticated that my once beloved Macintosh computer would fit in my back pocket as a cell phone 25 years later. Here are my predictions for social in 2012:

1. Mobile:  The Slow Death of the Desktop

I may as well start with the big stuff. Apple alone has shipped over 100 million Internet-enabled devices this year. Mobile is on fire and we are using these devices to do our jobs nearly 24/7. The year 2012 will be the slow death of the desktop. As marketers, this means we must make sure our websites and documents are mobile-enabled and our creative images shrunk down to the size of a pea. So now, don’t just think “above the fold.” Instead, think 120×20 pixels for everything you do on the web.

 2. Measurement: Don’t Underestimate the Clout of Klout

In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (sorry, I’m a recovering English major), T.S. Eliot wrote, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” If only it were that easy! As marketers, we’re always measuring things. It used to be butts in seats, then clicks, now followers and re-tweets. In 2012, we will be measured and rewarded by metrics like Klout scores—both our personal and our company’s scores. Last I checked, my Klout score is higher than my age—whew! But that was not the case a few months ago. So as you drive followers to your various social media outlets, make sure you have all the necessary elements going: influence, comments, mentions, unique likers and yes, still re-tweeters, to keep that score growing. Your boss is watching and measuring.

3. Presentations: Infographics Connect with Today’s Audiences

In my early days, we used these things called “transparencies” to create marketing presentations; I used to waste so many of them because my handwriting and spelling were awful. Thank goodness PowerPoint was invented so that we marketers can make all kinds of beautiful slides. But remember, this is the social media era. No one has an attention span longer than 140 characters and pictures are required. The infographic has become a popular way of distributing content and I predict that they will become the acceptable and even expected format for top-line reporting. In fact, I’m working on one right now!

 4. SEO: But Which SE Are You Optimizing For?

As marketers, do you and your team spend a lot of time on SEO? Do you worry about “pandas” ruining your day? I’m talking about Google here. And with the adoption of Google+, Google is creating a search-ranking imbalance, say compared to Facebook, on Google search results. In 2012, marketers will get sick of weighted results and lean toward Bing. Google will lose market share to Bing, which will grab 20 percent. What does this mean to us as marketers? Deploy the focus of your SEO efforts and dollars accordingly.

 5. Social Tools: Fewer but Better Choices

Last time I counted, there were 226 social media monitoring tools with new ones popping up every few days. The big change I expect to see in 2012 is that 10 percent will roll up and/or be purchased by Enterprise Software Vendors, 40 percent will struggle to make it on their own and 50 percent will go the way of the dodo. So why do I say it will be easier? With consolidation and the big boys getting into the game, you’ll be able to go to a trusted source and won’t have to review 39 RFPs anymore.

There are a few other things I expect to see happen in 2012. For example, my one-year-old will absolutely beat me in Fruit Ninja. The other three kids (who are five and under) already have! More Boomers will take to Twitter; I say this because my dad just asked me for “tweet advice.”  I’m sure the entire presidential election will happen on social where candidates will drop out and all kinds of news will be broken. I also think B2B and B2C business will realize that their customers are in charge creating a new paradigm I call “Running C2B.” I’m sure there will also be plenty of new games, networks and tools created that I will likely be tweeting and blogging about.

###

Lisa Joy Rosner is the Chief Marketing Officer at NetBase, where she works with the largest brands in the world—including Coca-Cola, Kraft and Taco Bell—as they change their approach to understanding consumers’ desires. Rosner is a tenured marketing executive in Silicon Valley, who is known for her creative and educational marketing approach. You can follow her on Twitter @LisaJoyRosner.