Marketing asked the industry what changes and continuing trends they thought would be prevalent in 2014, and opinions from thought leaders continue to flood our inboxes. Here’s a bit of crystal ball-gazing from some of the country’s leading social media minds.
Dan Sorotschynski
Director of social, digital and experiential at Telus
Social, Local, Mobile (SoLoMo) will take flight
There will be a blurring of lines between online and offline to enhance the traditional retail landscape. Shoppable storefronts, improved retail experiences through the use of social and location based tools/apps will offer more depth, value and convenience to consumers. Examples include: Burberry and Yihaodian.
The rise of “lean marketing”
2014 will (hopefully) see a major shift in the process to which ideas are created for marketers. With continued pressure for growth on declining budgets, brands/agencies will need to take a page from the start-up world and adapt lean/agile working processes to survive. This will fundamentally change the way ideas are created, will be dramatically more cost/time efficient and will force a much deeper understanding of consumers and their behaviour to achieve success. It will start amongst social teams adopting real time, publishing-like operating models and will, in turn change the daily operating procedures of all agencies/brands.
Eric Vieira
Group account director at Grip
Social amplification will demand the power of actual humans
The power of social buying may be better utilized if it were in the hands of the social content strategist for social amplification. A question to pose to the industry is whether or not our current processes are structured properly to support this real time bidding, constant optimization and socially prominent forms of content amplification. Algorithm’s can get us so far, but in the same way social requires a human interaction, social amplifications demands the attention of an individual. Social strategist will need to know this skill set to ensure they’re employable in the very near future. Social amplification isn’t a revenue generator, but rather a confirmation of content consumption.
Google+ – The Sleeping Giant Awakes!
If I had one social community to hang my hat on (for brand building) in the next 12months it would be Google+. Their platform integration into everything they do is making it an absolute powerhouse. From Google algorithm’s instant indexing of Google+ content, while giving it greater value in search results, to the importance of it influencing SEO/SCO strategies, and +Brand pages showing up in the significant right hand column real-estate, Google+ will easily win the ROI value comparison. Google’s recent introduction of “+Post ads” is a brilliant depiction of the next web and evolution of how we communicate as advertisers.
Our content strategies are more than just “posts” when they can be amplified around the web. When you think of the network Google has available to promote your richest content the action of putting ad dollars to promote within say Facebook or Twitter seems so limiting. With Google your content now has an opportunity to garner contextual relevance within a user’s web behaviours… Imagine – Honda Canada posts a question to its loyal customers asking “What’s your favourite Honda – tell us why?” then promoting this post within an Auto website to those who are in the market to buy a car.. That’s when social content delivers true utility – while influencing consideration and ideally purchase intent. This simple approach also keeps the community un-cluttered with brand messaging that algorithmically doesn’t deserve to be shown to you. That’s huge.
Maggie Fox
Senior vice president of digital marketing at SAP
Marketing as a business driver
We’re right in the middle of a dramatic swing from marketing as a cost centre, to marketing as a strategic business driver. We’re seeing analysts reporting on marketers increasing their spend on technology (most of us will be spending more than CIOs by 2017) as well as recent articles about the strategic power of marketing. Products, supply chains and other “upstream” activities are destined to be commoditized. However, what is ever-changing and deeply strategic is listening to the customer in order to deliver value. That’s marketing. It’s also the big, original promise of social and digital. For savvy marketers who can execute on this opportunity, 2014 could very well be the year they take a seat at the big table.
Casie Stewart
Blogger and social media director at GelaSkins
Rise of the value economy
I’m with Gary Vaynerchuck in that ‘this is the value economy’. It’s the industrial revolution of the Internet, no more bloggers crowding NYFW, we want quality, it’s about being good at what you do. Look at Netflix, Rdio, and then cable television. Who watches TV anymore? We are the new generation and we do what we want. I’m excited for more stylish wearable technology and intuitive apps that know what I want, when I want it, based on where I am at the time. Google Glass, get over here!
