Connectivity

• In the coming years social media will grow exponentially.
• Growth will come primarily from the rapidly expanding online and mobile user bases in emerging markets.
• Individuals will be highly connected through mobile technology and social media.
• More than 30 percent of the global population will have the unprecedented capability to connect with anyone.
• Virtual Reality - The rapid advance of information and communication technology will likely continue apace.
• Social media will play a greater role in consumer decisions to bet, play and consume.

Analytics

• Masses of data on citizens' views and preferences will be created.
• Social media monitoring and data analytics will continue to grow as a result.

Computing

• Cloud computing will help with reducing and optimizing power consumption through consolidating resources, and social media platforms, such as Twitter.
• Many, many things will be easier and more intuitive for consumers.
• Increasingly immersive video-based communication, social media and other tools will all become far more pervasive in business.

Trust

• Companies will have to begin by addressing the trust gap that has emerged out of the past five or ten years of social media marketing.
• Attitudes towards social media and more sophisticated data-driven systems will modernise when a generational shift among senior bosses takes place.
• Social media will increasingly be used to establish firm reputation and brand.

Connectivity

• Individuals will be highly connected through mobile technology and social media.
• Interacting with screens in more ways and more places will become a part of everyday behavior for many consumers as technology rapidly advances, costs drop, and retailers and marketers find innovative ways to implement interactive screens.

Computing

• Cloud computing will help with reducing and optimizing power consumption through consolidating resources, and social media platforms, such as Twitter.
• Customers, competitors and investors alike will be able to search social networks and use interconnected data to build a real-time picture of current activity and draw insights and inferences about what is happening to a particular firm.
• New location-based merchant-funded reward platforms will emerge that improve the targeting of offers and social media channel insight will be used to improve service and delivery.
• Learning 3.0 will incorporate social media, gaming, real-time feedback, and simulations.
• Augmented reality tools such as AR mobile browsers (like Layar) or wearables (like Google Glass) will become affordable and widespread.
• Social media presence will no doubt increasingly become a cheaper substitute for actual human assistance.
• Lawyers entering the courtroom will have a range of wearable technologies and augmented reality applications.

Analytics

• The convergence of social media and analytics can lead to significant reduction in the innovation process.
• Most recruitment efforts will be moved online through social media and the Internet.
• Social media will also take the place of the commentator.
• Social media will come to be considered part of watching a sporting event with the ability to gauge the 'social pulse' of the event being integral to the overall experience.
• Firms will adopt sophisticated intelligent automated social search and analysis algorithms.
• Company culture and behaviors will be monitored through social media.
• Aggregating social data with all the other performance data will provide an added dimension that could well see coaches responding to spectator sentiment.
• ERP and CRM applications will incorporate more and more ideas from the current social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.
• Semantic web technology will apply rules to aggregated data to synthesize and filter the most relevant information and events and minimize the risk of overwhelming users with data.

Trust

• Social media will be the media.
• Corporations will act out of social responsibility because of an increased cultural intelligence and a deeper appreciation of the relationship between business and society.
• Governments will need to explore greater use of new media.
• Police and State Security organizations are going to have to respond much faster to the changing information and intelligence opportunities presented by big data.
• Domain knowledge and thought leadership will be at a competitive advantage.
• Access to personal data will have to be safeguarded with commitments to protect user privacy and control.

Explore Shaping Tomorrow to find the sources and more resources on the future of social media, some of which were used in this Trend Alert.

Shaping Tomorrow can help your organization rapidly assess and respond to these and other key issues affecting your business, please contact us to find out how.