What ‘app-ens next?

And so this is Christmas… and what a difference a year can make to the digital landscape."

And so this is Christmas… and what a difference a year can make to the digital landscape. Google launched an assault on social networking with the birth of Google+, Amazon surpassed all expectations with the Kindle Fire, and this year also witnessed the sad passing of one of our generation’s technology greats, Apple’s Steve Jobs. Facebook had a facelift, Twitter had a facelift, YouTube had a facelift… and the opportunities for brands in the digital arena are greater than ever before. This week, to celebrate the festive season, Golley Engage makes its digital predictions for the year ahead.

Brands go social

We predict that 2012 will be the year that brands go truly social. Whether as a result of the desire to turn negative comment into positive word-of-mouth recommendation, or as recent campaign activity proves the difference social can make to the bottom line, brands will embrace marketing’s newest discipline.

Brands will learn to listen, and to respond to consumers via the channel chosen by the consumer. The rules of engagement are changing, and brands are beginning to take up arms. To move from one-off campaigns to always-on conversations, real structural and cultural change is required. The pay-off is considerable – brands are being given the opportunity to open up dialogue with consumers, to co-create and to deliver exactly what their customers want. The question is will they listen?

Effective data

Qualitative data, taken from social media monitoring tools and from the expertise of those managing brand communities, will begin to drive business decisions. A bold claim, but nonetheless, next year brands will be forced to stand up and take notice of how social media can shape their sales cycle. From ‘crowd-sourcing’ product development through to helping to predict sharp sales peaks, social media can offer conversational data indicating popular models, colours or celebrity associations that could change the way customers interact with your brand or products.

Social intelligence and insight will start to be baked into all marketing activity at the very centre of owned and earned media strategy. It will become apparent to clients that often the agencies or individuals managing digital channels are best placed to create the content that those communities want.

Mobile

Over half of UK consumers now own a smartphone device, and they are using mobile everywhere. M-commerce has become big bucks, as savvy shoppers are using their phones to research products or services, check the status of an order, locate a nearby store or look up additional information whilst out and about. This presents a huge opportunity for brands to communicate with consumers whilst they’re out-and-about, and to remove potential barriers to purchase. M-commerce should aim to capitalise on existing opportunities to further engage the customer and should, above all else, place the consumer at the centre; next year is not just the year of m-commerce, it is the year of cross platform, integrated, consumer-lead marketing.

Sharing

Pictures, media, status updates are all things that we are familiar with ‘sharing’ across social media platforms. The media industry was one of the first to cotton on to this trend, adding sharing options to news articles, which in turn led to more hits and better visibility in search engine results. But what comes next? In 2012 we’ll be sharing the dress we just bought, holiday we just booked or offering SMEs personal recommendations across our social networks. Sharing has become a social norm, and we can’t get enough of it.

TV fights back

Appointment to view TV took a bit of a hit in 2011, as networks struggled to convince viewers to watch television through their televisions, and not through catch-up services online. In 2012 the TV will fight back. Don’t be surprised to see TV and internet converge, and changes to the way we consume our favourite programmes.

We already love using Internet services like Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and others to watch our favorite shows on demand, but with the rumoured launch of an Apple product designed specifically to meet this need, it looks like TV will be stepping it up a gear. In 2012, all of our media devices including our television sets, computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones could come together to offer us more social, sharable television experiences that far outweigh a cup of tea and tonight’s ‘Enders.

Lindsey Reaney
Account Manager, Golley Engage