“Social” space – 2010 predictions.

This is the time of the year when people start predicting major trends for the upcoming year. After careful considerations I decided to publish mine – focusing on major trends in “social” space: Social CRM, Social Media/Networking. And I will do it by categories – makes more sense to me, hope to you too!

People

Out: hiring “Social Media Experts” for Social CRM, Social Media/Networking projects.

In: hiring people with deep functional/business processes expertise AND deep practical understanding of Social CRM, Social Media/Networking and demonstrated practical expertise of their use.

Why? As market matures, companies will realize that in any type of business social media is not a stand alone application. Social Media has to be integrated with back end processes. Hiring in this space will move to the next level of maturity. Big 4 will lack expertise in anything social, will be too slow to capture this space: too much bureaucracy and misunderstanding will not allow them to lead Social CRM, social media/networking initiatives. Smaller boutique consulting companies with top level expertise in both: enterprise business processes and social media/networking will thrive in 2010.

Methodology:

Out: How to use tools, which tools to use, etc…as a start of any type of Social CRM, Social Media projects.

In: In depth, structured business processes analysis. Integrated methodology. ROI- based identification and deployment of social media tools/applications – very specific per business process.

Why? Again, market matures. Businesses who jumped in social media space in 2008, 2009 will realize that some [most] of their social media tools and methods of engaging those did not deliver the results they were expecting. Re-evaluation, measurements, and application of structured deployment methodologies will help them to re-engineer and re-deploy the ones that did not work and deploy the ones that will help their businesses grow.

Tools.

Major trend: Consolidation.

Out: Niche stand-alone tools will be slowly disappearing or consumed by the bigger players.

In: Introduction of more of social media integrated functions within the core type of business applications suites traditionally used by enterprises.

Why? Social Media/Networking will be more integrated into specific business processes. As usual the integration of stand-alone tools into back-end business applications will prove to be complex and expensive. Main players in ERP, CRM space will be introducing more social media integrated functions within their core applications either by developing on their own or by acquiring companies with products in complimentary space.

I like discussions, respectful exchange of notes, comments. I am positive:  you may not agree with some of my predictions or even [hopefully NOT ] all of them. That’s OK! The main point of this blog was to generate conversations. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!