Here’s What 2014 Will Mean for Social Media
By
Beverly Macy
2014 is a critical time for the power of social media in business. After years of endless conversations in the form of Selfies, SnapChats, Instagrams, Vines, tweets and posts we are now fully immersed in a massive global, mobile, and social river.
Conversation is still the currency that fuels social business. Now we face the challenge of ensuring that conversation is built on trust, credibility, and relevancy. Then the layers of semantic web and big data analytics will be the logical next step for the social enterprise going forward.
Unfortunately, I see countless hasty and ill-conceived social media efforts that are causing more harm than good to great brands. Tossing up a Facebook page and turning that over to a summer intern is NOT a strategy and won’t produce measurable ROI. Just the opposite. It is the kiss of death for your billion dollar brand. Just look at the debacle JP Morgan Chase created when it attempted, and then cancelled, its first-ever Twitter chat.
True competitive advantage is waiting for the enterprise and brands that have a deep understanding of how to create relevant content and then harvesting the relevant business intelligence contained in that content.
That means taking the time to educate your senior teams on the power of real-time social media. Learn to appreciate the value of social business, and you will quickly realize incredible leverage for your business results.
That’s the true return on investment strategy for 2014. You’re not too late, just get busy.
Beverly Macy is the co-author of The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing. She also teaches Executive Global Marketing and Branding and Social Media Marketing for the UCLA Extension. Email at beverlymacy@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post.
