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The Value of Reputation

A few days ago, I published the chart you see in this post on Twitter to highlight how one of my favorite brands, Nutella, has the best global reputation across the board. The Reputation Institute, which was introduced to me by my friend Richard Binhammer over a year ago, pulls together seven dimensions to compute a brand’s reputation.

They are:

• product/service
• innovation
• workplace
• governance
• citizenship
• leadership
• performance

How many of you are actively working on communicating with the people and communities that contribute to influencing your brand’s reputation across these seven dimensions? Customers, employees, partners, investors, and so on.

You know that reputation has an impact on the perceived value of your company and brand.

Yet so many companies do a poor job at providing a diverse image across these dimensions, especially on a proactive basis. Underestimating the fact that a strong platform of support is not just necessary, it is a vital part of the brand’s present and future performance.

Therein lies the difference between risk management, a discipline of good and proactive practices that help you identify, assess, implement, and measure activities that allow the organization to be proactive and strategic about risk, and crisis management, its reactive cousin.

Why this is important

Many companies tend to react to crisis and very rarely work on a thought out plan to minimize risks. Is it any wonder that the PR profession is so active around crisis communications today?  Danah Boyd’s Web 2.0 Expo flow of information talk provides a set of data points on how to go about it today [hat tip Neil Perkin].

Information sites used to be a destination, accessing information a process, producing content a task – things are now in constant flow. How has flow transformed the production of and attention to information? Wearing the public relations and communications hat, and thinking about the dimensions of company and brand reputation, here’s why this is an important consideration.

To be relevant today requires understanding context, popularity, and reputation.

Making content work in a networked era is going to be about living in the streams, consuming and producing alongside “customers.” Consuming to understand, producing to be relevant.

Content creators are not going to get to dictate the cultural norms just because they can make their content available; they are still accountable to those who are trafficking content.

We need technological innovations. For example, tools that allow people to more easily contextualize relevant content regardless of where they are and what they are doing and tools that allow people to slice and dice content so as to not reach information overload.

This is not simply about aggregating or curating content to create personalized destination sites.

How are you engaging content mediators and information networkers across the dimensions that form your brand’s reputation? Remember that reputation and recommendation are tightly correlated.

What it may look like

Here are some initial ideas for each of the seven dimensions, taking into consideration that monitoring and listening is part of the consuming activity, as well as the producing. The beauty of flow – and its inherent scariness – is that it is ongoing, at times rapid, and ever changing.

Consider:

• product/service [classified as key driver at 17.5%] – product development and customer service teams need to get integrated in the flow to understand uses and issues. Are your products and services high quality?

• governance [classified as key driver at 15.1%] – board of directors, management, employees, suppliers, customers, banks and other lenders, regulators, the environment and the community at large all reach a common understanding.

• citizenship [classified as key driver at 14.7%] – also known as corporate social responsibility is where management and business strategists need to connect with the responsibility for the impact of the company’s activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders, etc.

• innovation – product development, marketing, and business strategy are synchronized in real time to capture feedback loops.

• workplace – business strategists, human resources personnel, managers especially embedded in the collaboration networks. Are you treating employees well? With a simple link or comment thread, the world will know instantly.

• leadership – executive and management behavior not shielded from but exposed to the flow and vice versa. Good leadership increases trust, confidence, support, and investment from key stakeholders. Emotional investment, especially at a time when companies are losing trust so rapidly, creates economic value. Are you practicing transparent and ethical business?

• performance – investors are also employees, customers, and partners. Their experience and understanding impacts the company’s performance today more than ever. Is the company’s vision articulated clearly? Is the company delivering on its financial expectations?

There is an ever stronger correlation between recommendation and reputation. According to the Institute’s research, if you improve reputation by 5 points, support goes up by 6.75%. Ferrero, IKEA, and Johnson & Johnson have the best global reputation in the chart above. Which means:

1. customers trust what the company is promising
2. investors can count on financial predictions
3. employees know the company will honor its word
4. the world admires the company’s leadership

This is where communications and social become operational, with communicators curating the conversation, connecting the dots, and working alongside teams while maintaining a direct line to company officers and executives.

Does this give you a few ideas on the changing role of public relations professionals? How are you organizing to be in the stream to help curate the conversation with stakeholders and fulfill the brand and company’s reputation needs across its dimensions?

***

Note on survey methodology: companies were rated by customers in their home country. The Global Reputation Pulse (your info required to download) is a measure of corporate reputation calculated by averaging perceptions of trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling obtained from a representative sample of 100 local respondents who were familiar with the company.

_______

Further reading on reputation:

Improve Your Company’s Reputation Online

Conversational Index is Reputation-Driven

Reputation, the One Thing You Cannot Really Buy

© 2006-2009 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Google Adwords Certification Vs Google Analytics Qualified

Posted by immanuelruby on March 12, 2009 · Filed Under Adwords, Google Analytics, ppc

In today’s economic season, website decision making plays vital role in Marketing and Advertising industry. Keeping this in mind, recently Google has announced certification entitled “Google Analytics Qualified”. As we all know about Google Adwords certification known as “Individual Google Adwords Professional” that you and/or your company has a good understanding of how the Adwords system works. It’s good for the resume, as well as another level of accreditation.
Here I have described the similarities and differences on how to take test, study materials and other details on Google Adwords Certification and Google Analytics Qualified.

 

Details	Google Adwords Certification	Google Analytics Qualified
Announced	Well known to all long before	It has been launched just last month
Exam Fee	$50.00	$50.00
Pass %	75.00%	75.00%
Name of the Certification	Will be registered as “Google Adwords Qualified Professional”	Will be registered as “Google Analytics Qualified”
Validity Period	Remains current for 36 months from the date that you pass the test.	Remains current for 18 months from the date that you pass the test.
Study Materials	You can find it on Google Adwords Learning center.	All content is freely available for you to access online via Conversion University.
Study Material – Type	Both Multimedia and Text lessons	Adobe presentation
Eligibility	Manage at least one AdWords account (yours or someone else’s) in My Client Center for 90 days.	No need to have a website with Google Analytics installed in order to become qualified in Google Analytics
	Build and maintain at least US$1,000 total spend for your or your team’s My Client Center account during the 90-day period.
Cost of Materials	Free	Free
After passing the Exam	Once you achieve your certification, you can use it in promotional materials for your company.	You’ll be effective at leveraging Google Analytics within your organization and helping others to do the same.

 

Disclaimer: The post is completely based on individual thoughts and SEO Services Group bears no responsibilities for the thoughts reflected in the post.

Why Are Marketers So Bad At Measuring Social Media? (And How Can They Get Better?)

NOVEMBER 02, 2009

[Posted by Nate Elliott. Follow me on twitter.]

Marketers don’t think they’re very good at measuring social media.  When my colleague Emily Riley asked marketers to rate their ability to measure the impact of their social media initiatives, the average grade they gave themselves was 4.5 out of 10. Not a great score — especially given that accountability is one of the key selling points of interactive marketing. So I’ve spent a lot of time this year trying to understand why marketers aren’t good at measuring social media — and how they can do better.

The fact is, social media marketers are drowning in a sea of metrics. Every social platform and vendor offers its own metrics, and there are literally hundreds of ways to measure the success of social initiatives. With so many numbers to choose from, and so little insight into which metrics are important, it’s not surprising that marketers feel overwhelmed.

Most marketers fixate on easily-available measures like followers or fans — regardless of whether those metrics are important. Many others fail to measure obviously useful numbers just because they’re not on the first page of a report. A marketer focused ontalking [video] should have a radically different definition of success than one focused on embracing [video]. But marketers are much more likely to tailor their social media measurement to the tools they’re using than to the objectives they’re trying to achieve. Have a look — most marketers measure pretty much the same metrics, no matter what their objective:

It’s obvious that marketers need more clarity into which social media metrics they should be tracking. So we’ve developed a simple three-step process to help marketers better tailor their measurement strategies to the objectives they’re pursuing. Walking through these three steps will help you cut through the clutter on your marketing reports and measure your social media initiatives more effectively:

• Step 1: Think back to your marketing objective. Go back and find your notes from when you were first planning your social marketing effort — and remind yourself of the objective you were pursuing. If you don’t know what your goal was, you’ll never know what you should be measuring, or if you succeeded.
• Step 2: Consider what types of metrics signal success. Don’t think about specific lines on a report yet — instead, think about what types of consumer behaviors and sentiments match your objectives, and focus your measurement on those categories of metrics. If your goal was energizing, success is defined as lots of people saying positive things about your brand; if your goal was supporting, you want to know if users were providing good advice to each other — and whether it kept users from having to ask you for support directly.  Again, this isn’t about specific metrics, it’s about how you hoped your social initiative would change your relationship with consumers.
• Step 3: Look for that category of metric in the social technology you’re using. Once you’ve identified the type of metric that will signal success, then you can look for ways to track those metrics within the social platform you’re using. This is when you should get into the specifics of which lines on the report Facebook or Jive gives you are most important — and which other vendors you need to use to find the exact numbers you’re looking for.

In my new report, ‘Three Steps To Measuring Social Media Marketing,’ I offer a framework that helps marketers place social media metrics into one of six categories, shows them which categories of metrics should be used to measure which objectives, and gives examples of how to obtain those metrics from each social platform. I hope clients use my framework; I think it will make their lives easier and their measurement more successful.

But the key message of that report (and this blog post) isn’t the framework, it’s this call to action: We as an industry must do better at measuring social media marketing. Social media budgets keep rising, but that trend won’t continue forever if we can’t prove that social initiatives are effective. Perhaps more important, if we don’t know which social applications succeeded and which didn’t, we can’t learn from our experiences and improve on future efforts. And it’s surprisingly easy to measure social media effectively: we just need to focus on measuring objectives rather than technologies.

Whether you use the detailed framework in my report, or simply keep these three steps in mind as you design your own measurement strategy, I hope these ideas help you sift through all the social media metrics that are available, and find the right ones to measure your efforts.

McDonald’s Social Media Marketing Strategy

Written by Marc Metekohy on November 23rd, 2009 |

There is virtually noone in the industrialized world who has not been to McDonald’s at least once in his or her lifetime. The global market leader on fast food has recently shared its view on Social Media Marketing Strategy and what it means for McDonald’s and how they want to become market leader in this area as well.

Heather Oldani, U.S. Communications Director at McDonald’s, has shared McDonald’s Social Media Marketing Strategy and is a must-read for CMO’s.

BDI 11/12 The Social Consumer – McDonald’s Presentation

View more documents from Business Development Institute.

Important to McDonald’s are the following key learnings:

1. Ask yourself…”How can we actively engage” vs “Should we engage?”
2. Walk before running…Develop the right strategy for your brand vs leaping into tactical activation
3. Collaborate…Social media has potential for a number of different departments within a company
4. Be flexible/nimble…Some new trend that has the potential to impact your brand is always around the corner
5. Be open to feedback…Everyone has an opinion about your brand, products, services so be open and willing  to listen

It is interesting to see the different means used in collaboration with each other, from Twitter to Facebook to their own HUB.

Congratulations to Heather in achieving this great social strategy.

The Future of Agencies: What Do You Think?

[Posted by David Cooperstein]

Follow me @minicooper

We’re in the process of pondering a very important question in the industry today: what is the future of agencies? Agencies have played such a crucial role in helping companies market their products and services for more than a century. Names like McCann Erickson, Young & Rubicam, J. Walter Thompson,Ogilvy & Mather, and Saatchi & Saatchi (among others) are practically household names. There’s even a massively popular and critically acclaimed television showcapturing life in the golden age of legendary agencies on Madison Avenue.

Yet the agency model was built during a time when there were only a handful of channels in which they could push one way messages en masse. Does that model still work in a time when nearly a quarter of online US adults now create content online? Many more questions begin to arise as we open Pandora’s Box: Can one agency do it all? Are holding companies the answer? Can digital agencies compete with them and lead brands? Do marketers rely on agencies like they used to? Should marketers consolidate their agencies or de-centralize to dozens of agency partners? Are technology providers and crowd sourcing legitimate threats? Where is this all going?

To conduct this research we’re speaking with some of the most influential agencies, marketers, and service providers. However, what better way to get a feel for the pulse of the industry than to crowd source it? So we’re reaching out to get your take on the space. Please give us your thoughts in the comments section on the question: What is the future of agencies?

We look forward to your input from the Marketing Leader’s perspective (and please try to keep it to one or two paragraphs)! Since this research is a collaborative report across roles, this post is cross-posted on our Customer Intelligence, Interactive Marketing, and Customer Experience role blogs, if you want to see what others may be thinking about.

 

An introduction to search commands

Did you know you can search Google for web pages which were published in a certain timeframe? Did you know it often better to use Yahoo to work out your back links as you can exclude your own internal links?

In Yahoo it is possible to restrict your search to pages which have meta tags or which are in the Mediterranean (the coast, one assumes, rather than the sea). On Live search you can look for pages which contain RSS.

The Search Commands* home page shows summary search commands for: Google, Yahoo and Live Search. The rest of the site takes a deeper look at the nuances of common search commands and digs up some of the more obscure search engine commands too. Search Commands* is in beta.

Google search commands summary Yahoo search commands summary Live search commands summary Google search commands summary cache: Show the cached snapshot of a page link: List pages which link to a page related: List pages which Google consider to be related to another info: Find one specific URL in the search database define: Show Google’s glossary definition for a term stocks: Show American stockmarket information for a given ticker symbol site: Restrict a search to a single site allintitle: Restrict a search so that all the keywords must appear in the title intitle: Restrict a search so that some of the keywords must appear in the title allintext: Restrict a search so that all of the keywords must appear in the body text allinurl: Restrict a search so that all of the keywords must appear in the page address inurl: Restrict a search so that some keywords must appear in the page address OR List pages which have at least some of the keywords + Insist that the search engine includes a given keyword in the search results - Insist that the search engine omits pages which match a given keyword in the search results ~ Enhance a search to include synonyms for a given keyword * Include a wildcard match in your search results [#]…[#] Search a range of numbers as a keyword daterange: Restrict a search to any timeframe “” Restrict a search so that the keywords must appear consecutively in a phrase date: Restrict a search to a recent timeframe safesearch: Restrict a search to exclude adult-content filetype: Restrict a search to a given type of file More information about Google’s search commands is available on the dedicated Google search commands page. In Google’s page we look at how to use each commands, which search commands can be used together and which cannot. Yahoo search commands summary site: Restrict a search to a single site hostname: Restrict a search to a single host name link: List pages which link to a page url: Find one specific URL in the search database inurl: Restrict a search so that some keywords must appear in the page address intitle: Restrict a search so that some of the keywords must appear in the title map Inclue a map of any US location weather Include current weatherinformation for any US location define Include a defination for the keyword airport Link to weather, directions and maps for an American airport area code Include a list of cities which match the US area code facts Include encyclopedia entry for keyword convert: Show a variety of unit conversion rates, for example currency or distance gas Include link to gas prices for an American area hotels Include links to hotels in the area showtimes Include and link to movie showtimes in the area news Include and link to news headlines which match the keyword patent Link to detailed information for the matching patent number keyword quote Show American stockmarket information for a given ticker symbol synonym Include synonyms for keyword and link to definitions of each scores Include and link to score results for team name keyword time Include local time and timezone information for location keyword traffic Link to traffic reports for location keyword zip code Include a list of zip codes which match the location keyword + Insist that the search engine includes a given keyword in the search results - Insist that the search engine omits pages which match a given keyword in the search results feature: Restrict a search to pages which include a given feature region: Restrict a search to pages from a given region More information about Yahoo’s search commands is available on the dedicated Yahoo search commands page. In Yahoo’s page we look at how to use each commands, which search commands can be used together and which cannot. Live search commands filetype: Restrict a search to a given type of file link: List pages which link to a page linkdomain: List pages which link to a domain LinkFromDomain: List pages which a domain links to contains: List pages which link to a given filetype inurl Restrict a search so that some keywords must appear in the page address inanchor: Restrict a search so that the keyword must appear in anchors tags on the page intitle: Restrict a search so that some of the keywords must appear in the title inbody: Restrict a search so that all of the keywords must appear in the body text ip: List sites hosted by keyword IP address language: Restrict a search to a specific language location: Restrict a search to pages from a given region prefer: Enhance a search by giving emphasis to the given keyword site: Restrict a search to a single site url: Find one specific URL in the search database + Insist that the search engine includes a given keyword in the search results - Insist that the search engine omits pages which match a given keyword in the search results NOT Insist that the search engine omits pages which match a given keyword in the search results OR List pages which have at least some of the keywords | List pages which have at least some of the keywords “” Restrict a search so that the keywords must appear consecutively in a phrase () Group keywords together More information about Live Search’s search commands is available on the dedicated Live search commands page. In Live Search’s page we look at how to use each commands, which search commands can be used together and which cannot.

A Tale of Two Nonprofit and Social Media Adoption Surveys

Social Impact Nonprofit Social Media Survey

View more presentations from Weber Shandwick Social Impact.

The results of two new research studies about nonprofits and adoption of social media were released this week.  One focuses on telling nonprofits not to bother with social media, the other provides some strategic ways to move forward.

Weber Shandwick released the results of a survey of 200 nonprofit and foundation executives to explore how their organizations (range of budgets) are using social media and the value they derive from these efforts.   Here’s the topline results:

• There is extensive experimentation with social media in the nonprofit sector, but only half (51%) surveyed are active users
• Most nonprofits (67%) say social media is changing how they communicate with broad external audiences, but not narrower categories of stakeholders
• Most nonprofits (52%) do not currently have the infrastructure, staff and expertise necessary to take full advantage of social media’s potential
• Nonprofit executives (83%) understand that social media makes it easier for supporters to organize independently – underscoring how critical it is for nonprofits to demonstrate their value and relevance to advocates
• Ultimately, for most nonprofit executives (79%), the true value of social media has yet to be determined for their organizations

The findings of this research offer insights into how nonprofits and foundations can optimize their use of social media in the future.

Successful nonprofit organizations will:

• Move from experimentation to implementation of strategic programs that drive digital engagement
• Focus on two-way conversations that build meaningful and sustainable connections with a range of priority audiences
• Invest in social media capacity as a means of achieving brand building, advocacy and fundraising goals
• Demonstrate their unique impact to underscore relevance to advocates
• Measure social media with key metrics for visibility, engagement and advocacy 

The other survey, implemented by Philanthropy Action, focuses on midsized nonprofits.  The headline is:  Social Network and Mid-Size Nonprofits:  What’s The Use?

The survey looked at results and numbers and concludes that social media is not very effective and that midsize organizations should not waste time or effort.   The survey was implemented between July 2008 and March 2009 – and the results presented here are focused on impact metrics

In terms of fundraising and attracting volunteers, metrics that most nonprofit boards and executive directors highly value, the available evidence suggests that social media is not very effective. To be fair, that evidence is limited. To date, there are only two surveys that we know of, one which we conducted, that have sought to quantify the impact of social technologies in terms familiar to executive directors and boards. In both cases, the results show that social technologies are not delivering much in terms of fundraising or attracting volunteers. While advocates of social technologies rightly point out that these are not the only metrics by which social technologies should be judged, they are the metrics that the majority of respondents to our survey cited as driving their participation. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of respondents to our survey say they are going to increase their investment in the use of social networking.

Certainly there are different motivations of the sponsors of these surveys, different methodologies, and different conclusions. 

My opinion is that nonprofits should not ditch their efforts in social media.  It takes time to get results, like anything else.  You need to listen, engagement, develop relationships, scale within your organization, and have the capacity to implement strategically.  This takes time and social media for nonprofits is still in its infancy.  There are no silver bullets.  The results are in developing listeners and participants who may later become supporters.

It’s time to set realistic outcomes, look for strategic efficiencies, and define and share best practices. I don’t think it is a good idea to simply dismiss social media.  I think it is important to have the conversation, but don’t look at ROI in such a narrow – dollars only.   Look at the missed opportunity costs of not participating – as well as take it as an opportunity to look at everything you’re doing and figure out what isn’t working and try social media in its place.  It also important to keep measuring and improving.

What does your nonprofit think?   Social media forget about it or move forward but implement strategically?  Do you think social media is a waste of time for your organization or a technique in the early stages that needs more time to mature?

Update:  The researchers responded that their conclusion was that midsize nonprofits should not use social media for fundraising.  Sure didn’t get that from the title.   Further clarification point:

I think the most interesting “alternative” view of the data we collected is how many orgs reported no success on the metrics that they initially cared about but that they were planning on investing more. There are two possibilities to explain that: 1) they are caught up in shiny object syndrome and thinking “the reason it’s not working is we haven’t invested enough”, or 2) they are finding value other than what they expected and that value is enough to justify increased investment.

This is a point I make over and over again – use the right metrics.   Social media metrics – particularly in the early stages of use – are softer ones – like learning and adapting, and engagement.  Once you’ve engagement full measure, then start counting conversions.

Technorati Tags: nonprofit, social media

Where Interactive Marketing Dollars Are Going

posted by Jason Falls in November 13th, 2009

Forrester Research has released a new report forecasting interactive marketing spend in the U.S. for the next five years. The report, authored byShar VanBoskirk, is available in its entirety on the Forrester Research website.

The report details how certain industries currently spend, and projects how they will spend, on interactive marketing. It also offers some interesting insights for businesses trying to ensure they are either catching, or keeping up with the Joneses. VanBoskirk talks more about it on the Forrester Research blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals.

Current Interactive Marketing Spend – Courtesy of Forrester Research, Inc. (Click for larger version)

 

Current Interactive Marketing Spend – Courtesy of Forrester Research, Inc. (Click for larger version)

 

The chart above shows what Forrester estimates brands are currently spending on Interactive Marketing. Display advertising is banner ads and similar, standard ads on websites. The numbers aren’t all that surprising, but think about where the industry is when you think of these insights:

• Display ads continue to dominate consumer goods and media and entertainment, among other categories. This despite the fact consumer trends indicate ads simply don’t work as well as other interactive areas.
• The industries that have been using the web the longest – travel and hospitality – spend three times as much on search marketing as display ads and almost 30 percent of their overall budget on Interactive. That’s 10 percent more than any other industry.
• Social media spend is last or second to last in all categories except business services. Social media consultants and agencies selling social media fall into that category.
• Email marketing, the interactive version of cash cow direct marketing, appears to be almost an afterthought across the board.

It doesn’t surprise me that media and entertainment and consumer goods industries continue to buy display ads more than other Interactive media. They’re not only conditioned to buy ads to communicate their message and under the influence of media planning and buying firms who only make money when they buy them, but they’re the final bastion of people who don’t understand consumers have flocked to arenas like social media to get away from the bull horns of traditional marketing. Are they getting better? Probably. Do they have a way to go? Yep.

Travel and hospitality industries have a few years experience on these others and are spending a ton more on search marketing and a ton more total dollars. I’ll give you a hint, GPG folks … they’re onto something.

While the cost of social media essentially equates to labor costs, there should still be more dollars devoted to it across the board. I say this not because I want to make more money (though I won’t turn it away) but because social media — building relationships with your consumers — is the one interactive marketing method that is sustainable and cost efficient in being such. You’re investing in the lifetime of your consumers here. The dollars will go a lot farther.

And if you aren’t taking advantage of good email marketing, you need to stop what you’re doing and figure that piece out fast. Email marketing done right, delivered to the right audience and with the right message is still the best way to consistently reach people in the interactive space.

These are my ideas on how companies and industries should look to change some of these numbers. You’ll have to go purchase the Forrester Report to see if their predictions match up with what I’m recommending. (Warning: Forrester Reports aren’t cheap, but do come with a three-week, money-back guarantee.)

In the meantime, what do the numbers tell you? What surprises you? What seems odd? A penny for your comments …

Six Social Media Trends for 2010

Six Social Media Trends for 2010

9:54 AM Monday November 2, 2009
by David Armano

 

In 2009 we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that’s my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? In no particular order:

1. Social media begins to look less social
With groups, lists and niche networks becoming more popular, networks could begin to feel more “exclusive.” Not everyone can fit on someone’s newly created Twitter list and as networks begin to fill with noise, it’s likely that user behavior such as “hiding” the hyperactive updaters that appear in your Facebook news feed may become more common. Perhaps it’s not actually less social, but it might seem that way as we all come to terms with getting value out of our networks — while filtering out the clutter.

2. Corporations look to scale
There are relatively few big companies that have scaled social initiatives beyond one-off marketing or communications initiatives. Best Buy’s Twelpforce leverages hundreds of employees who provide customer support on Twitter. The employees are managed through a custom built system that keeps track of who participates. This is a sign of things to come over the next year as more companies look to uncover cost savings or serve customers more effectively through leveraging social technology.

3. Social business becomes serious play
Relatively new networks such as Foursquare are touted for the focus on making networked activity local and mobile. However, it also has a game-like quality to it which brings out the competitor in the user. Participants are incentivized and rewarded through higher participation levels. And push technology is there to remind you that your friends are one step away from stealing your coveted “mayorship.” As businesses look to incentivize activity within their internal or external networks, they may include carrots that encourage a bit of friendly competition.

4. Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)
If the company you work for doesn’t already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year. From how to conduct yourself as an employee to what’s considered competition, it’s likely that you’ll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.

5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline
With approximately 70 percent of organizations banning social networks and, simultaneously, sales of smartphones on the rise, it’s likely that employees will seek to feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices. What used to be cigarette breaks could turn into “social media breaks” as long as there is a clear signal and IT isn’t looking. As a result, we may see more and/or better mobile versions of our favorite social drug of choice.

6. Sharing no longer means e-mail
The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Many websites already support this functionality, but it’s likely that we will see an increase in user behavior as it becomes more mainstream for people to share with networks what they used to do with e-mail lists. And content providers will be all too happy to help them distribute any way they choose.

These are a few emerging trends that come to my mind — I’m interested to hear what you think as well, so please weigh in with your own thoughts. Where do you see social media going next?

David Armano is part of the founding team at Dachis Group, an Austin based consultancy delivering social business design services. He is both an active practitioner and thinker in the worlds of digital marketing, experience design, and the social web. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/armano