What social networking will bring to businesses in the 2015

Guide: HootSuite CEO Leine Homes, a social media management platform, predicts that next year companies will invest more in social-networking marketing. As to whether "micro-marketing" really boosted sales, corporate executives will have a more comprehensive picture.

A recent study by Duke University on social media has left many business managers scratching their heads. Social media spending in many companies accounts for about 9% of corporate marketing budgets and is expected to soar to 25% over the next five years, according to the report. But half of the respondents said they had no way of confirming how social media had affected their businesses.

Many critics believe that the rush of companies to burn money in social media is just filling a bottomless pit. But I think these contradictory figures illustrate another problem: social networks are moving at a rapid pace, and companies are sparing no effort to keep up. While businesses are reaching out to more audiences through social networks and are seeing increasing benefits, the constantly changing social media landscape makes it a huge challenge to achieve sustained results and to measure these outcomes.

The pace of social media change is bound to accelerate in 2015, but for companies there is a big difference: mainstream social media are looking for ways to make it easier and more productive for businesses to interact with consumers in order to get money. At the same time, with the advent of various tools, tracking the effectiveness of social media spending, and even measuring the earnings of every microblog, will be simpler.

In short, the 2015 is a year when businesses are more likely to be seen to use social media and less likely to be overlooked. Now let's go through the crystal ball and see what the social network will bring to the company next year.

Marketing on Facebook will cost businesses more money

Your company's Facebook page has thousands of fans, so this means that every time you update the content, thousands of people will see it, right? Under Facebook's proprietary algorithm, each piece of marketing is likely to touch only one brand of 16% fans. But a report released earlier this year by researchers at Ogilvy Public Relations agency showed that the figure has fallen to around 6% and may fall further. The report's author, Matthew Manson, said: "Facebook and so on say, may one day, marketing content ' natural touch ' may reach 0. ”

So why is this happening? First, the user's message flow, the influx of content will only be more and more, it means that each marketing content will be seen less and less probability. At the same time, Facebook is encouraging companies to use its paid social ads, and it touches more users than the company publishes. These so-called "native ads", like ordinary Facebook messages, are displayed directly in the user's message stream, rather than appearing on the edge of the page like traditional banner ads.

What does this mean for businesses in the 2015? This means that in order to do "micro marketing" on Facebook, companies may have to double their money on paid social ads. At the same time, companies will put eggs into other baskets, such as Twitter, Instagram and even Chinese micro-letters. This wide-net approach is bad for Facebook's future, but it's a good way for businesses to reach different demographic groups.

If "micro marketing" really promotes sales, we'll see more tools

It is not difficult to have thousands of strands on Twitter or Facebook, or to collect tens of thousands of "Instagram" to show vanity. But how do they turn into sales and revenue? Until now, the problem has largely been circumvented, with companies smashing so much money on social media, based on vague terms such as "exposure" and "attention share."

But that is also changing rapidly. Many new tools are emerging, and the precision they bring to social media marketing processes is like the last generation of metrics on the web sales process. First, some analytics tools have been able to point out which social media is best at attracting traffic and CTR (like the ubervutool that our company uses) and will remember what kind of content you're sending (text, images, videos) and who your target group is. These applications can automatically plan the sending time of messages so that they are sent out at the best time of the day. At the same time they can not only report how many people read the content you send, but also the relative influence of these readers.

By combining these tools with social customer relationship management software such as Googleanalytics and Nimble, which records how customers interact with social media, it is possible for companies to track how all of these "micro-marketing" content translates into corporate site visits, You can even track how many people contact the salesperson or buy it directly through the online shopping channel. Finally, we can figure out how much real sales a particular microblog can produce, how much real money it brings, and not just assume.

Social networking will be more closely linked to business

In November this year, Snapchat launched a product called Snapcash, which became the first major social network in North America to allow users to transfer money to other users via message. The service uses debit card information and is free at least for now. Once it has stored your information, you don't need to enter it again, you can easily transfer money from one account to another by simply paddling on the phone.

As the mobile payments battle escalates, other social networks may soon follow suit. In fact, this October hacker incident shows that Facebook has quietly embedded a hidden payment function on its popular Messenger application. If the company activates it, 500 million users of the application can transfer money to each other.

However, this point-to-point payment is only the beginning. Predicting that this function is about to be open to merchant payments does not require a big intuitive jump. This, in turn, paves the way for social media to dive into the e-business world. For example, a retailer can send information about a particular product in tweets or microblogs, and the consumer needs to complete the entire online shopping process with a point of one or two on the phone. In fact, the "fit" of social media and electricity has already happened-and Facebook and Twitter are already starting beta tests on the "Buy" button.

In addition, for businesses to accept Low-cost or even 0-cost transfers through social media is more tempting than accepting credit card payments, which charge a 2% to 4% fee for each payment. With social networks beginning to take part in more and more financial transactions, in less than a few years, Facebook and other social platforms are likely to introduce cheaper and more affordable trading systems than the traditional credit card system.

Customer Service: Social media and mobile phone

Aviation, the Internet, cable television and many other industries have said that bringing customer service to social media has brought them significant benefits. The increase in consumer satisfaction is due to the fact that social media's customer service experience is more humane and more convenient and quicker than "800 service calls" or email links. Because conversations are largely public, customers who have legitimate grievances tend to get better treatment and, if handled properly, are quickly recognised on social networks.

But these benefits can also be a burden. Many customer information is very sensitive and cannot be discussed openly in social media. In addition, some problems are more complex, it is difficult to completely solve the 140-word microblog. Not every company, of course, wants to make a mess of things. However, some new products are consolidating the strengths of telephony and social media services, while also reducing potential negative impacts.

A new feature that might emerge next year is the so-called "tweets call back" link. For example, when a customer reflects a thorny problem through Twitter, a company can send a separate link. Click on the link and the user will get a separate phone number that can be contacted directly to one of the service representatives who can solve the problem. Once the call is over, the number is invalidated.

In this way, users can enjoy the fast response time brought by social media and enjoy the privacy and comprehensiveness of traditional telephone services. In addition, businesses can continue to provide independent telephony services to address specific issues that cannot be effectively addressed through low-cost social channels.

The biggest social media innovation or from the back door

Cloud computing has changed the way software and technology, including social media, enter the enterprise. Everything in the past was the IT director's decision, but now all the department's employees are actively looking for applications and services that will make their jobs better. The free value-added model used by many applications allows users to use a basic version of the application or service for free, and also makes it easier for users to try out new products. These cloud tools are generally more intuitive and easier to use, like Facebook and other consumer apps (this trend is called it "consumerism").

All of these trends mean that while it's hard to predict which apps will really make the rounds next year, the next big wave of social-media innovation may be brewing in your company. Applications such as Yammer (for internal socializing), Dropbox (for file sharing) and Google's Hangouts (for conference calls), which are already very popular, are first among front-line employees, and the next wave of better social media tools will start to fire from the bottom of the enterprise.

Want to see what kind of social media your company will use in the future? Find a newcomer to the company (preferably a 19-year-old intern), borrow her laptop or mobile phone to see what apps she's using.