This week celebrates Social Media Week, a global event platform for conversation, collaboration and learning to advance the understanding of social media’s role in society. I was checking out the event Website and its history – pretty impressive as it began in New York in 2009 and in two years has become a nine-city, biannual, global event. I couldn’t help but think back to its founding year and reflect on social’s growth since 2009, a year that was a true turning point in the evolution of social media and ways businesses engaged.
When I think back to 2004/2005, social media began with a few million blogs and the start of social staples like Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Along the way it picked up Twitter and continued to grow at an alarming pace, further fueled by increases in Internet use and smart phone adoption. Brands could no longer ignore its impact on their business and many began to monitor and listen to online conversations. They began see the value in directly connecting with their customers through social media. By 2009, what was a few million blogs grew to 126 million, Twitter hit 27.3 million tweets per day, Facebook commanded a user base the size of a large country and social had become serious business – changing forever how businesses market, sell and service their customers.
It’s also at this time and into 2010 that we began to see an inflection point in social media’s history. Brands that just listened, monitored and experimented with social media became less reactive and begun to plan their social efforts more strategically – integrating social media into their marketing, customer service and advertising initiatives. Brands like Pepsi, Old Spice, Vail Resorts and many others successfully crossed the Social Intelligence chasm, moving beyond social media monitoring to leverage social data to generate positive business outcomes.
As we look forward to this year and beyond, corporate success will rely heavily on finding ways to respond effectively to changes in the digital age. As we’ve seen some brands learn the hard way over the past several years, brand control no longer resides completely in the hands of the brand itself. This is an enormous shift that companies must adapt to in order to survive. With this in mind, here at Visible we believe that this will be the year that businesses finally get serious about social media and integrate social activities across the enterprise. Also, by applying actionable Social Intelligence organizations can drive business value at every level of the organization.
Having worked directly in this industry for several years now, it’s been exciting to watch the rapid change social media has brought to the ways we communicate, do business, and interact with one another and I look forward to watching this industry continue to grow and mature in the years to come. Cheers to all our friends attending Social Media Week and all those across the globe celebrating how far we’ve come! As always, we welcome any additional thoughts and predictions you have on what this year will hold.
