Armano’s predictions, plus one
17 Nov
Image by doug88888
David Armano makes a three predictions for 2010 on social media and business.
1. Scale
2. Integration
3. Policy
I think he’s right on for 2 and 3. I’d add an additional prediction – that social networking sites and tools will begin to add offerings that appeal to business. I’m not talking about CoTweet ramping up it’s twitter tool, while it’s a good product. I’m talking about product design BY the sites themselves. Sites building out tools and frameworks that not only support businesses but invite them. Let me be clear, I’m not sharing insider information, I just know what I think would help us and other companies like us.
Most social sites are designed for the individual and rightfully so as relationships are what create and grow these sites. But now that organizations are starting to join the fray – their needs, our need are different. Take for example any national retail company in any vertical. Walmart, Best Buy, Ruby Tuesday, P.F. Chang’s, Moe’s, etc. the list goes on and on. The commonality with all these organizations is that they are national, if not international companies, but ultimately serve customers locally.
Each of those customers cared for locally visits a store, where there may be 10-10,000 locations and those local stores together create the global brand. The tension is that social sites know how to serve the local – they are even set up for that in most cases (i.e. requiring a geographic area) but they haven’t quite figured out the global range yet. Global brands need the ability to set parameters to maintain control while allowing for local flexibility.
I’d also add that this need “could” be filled by third party developers if the platform API’s allow deep enough access.
Exciting to see how this plays out.
