Digital People - Forecasts For The Year Ahead

Laurel Papworth (Silk Charm) - Laurel's profile appeared in November 2009.  Forbes Magazine recently named her in the 50 Most Powerful Social Media Influencers for 2012.

My two main predictions for 2012 are around social commerce. The #Occupy movement will ignite the peer to peer banking movement and 2012 will be the year that banks found out that their industry is under attack. In the same way newspapers couldn't quite believe social media would impact them, banks will discover that once the community banking door is open it can never again be shut. International Bank Transfer day has already seen doubling of credit union membership - even with out a campaign from credit unions! The Super Profits of yesteryear marked the end of the line as far as the consumer is concerned.

The sleeping giant that is Facebook Credits will move into play - as Facebook takes on the Apple AppStore approach and offers storefronts on Business Pages for 30% of takings, ecommerce sites will be caught on the hop as small and medium business shift their storefronts from Etsy and eBay to Facebook. Big companies will follow, initially with small offerings of merchandising (Coca Cola hats anyone?) but will realise that social buying means big bucks.

One prediction I do not make is that the Government will catch on to the regulatory implications (social banking) or tax implications (Facebook Storefront) any time during 2012! The smart Digital Strategist will be ready and help organisations integrate their social ecommerce offerings with their traditional digital strategies.

Zac Zavos, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Conversant Media -  Publisher of The Roar & Lost@E Minor.  Zac's Profile appeared in May 2009.

We are seeing continued growth in demand for our sites, but you can't help but feel the spector of Europe will hang over the Australian market for much of the year. More than budget cuts, we've experienced campaign delays and longer than usual time for sign-off. So my guess is that business transaction speed will be hit more-so than absolute budgets. I think businesses which can tailor their sites to each brief and which offer much more than banners and buttons will still see demand.

Kerry Field, General Manager of MindShare.  Kerry's Profile appeared in March 2010.

Online advertising will be one of evolution as opposed to a revolution in 2012.   Paid, Owned and Earned are three words that are bounded about consistently.   I would argue that very few marketers actually think of their marketing strategies in this way.  In 2012 we will see a definitive shift to properly integrated elements of a marketing strategy.   From strategic planning right through to us getting a better grip on attribution from an ROI perspective.

In 2011 we started to see the migration from buying context to buying audiences.   DSPs and Market Places offer us real time customer intelligence.   This will result in even more brand dollars being spent in the online space in 2012.

Last but by no means least mobile integration will finally become a reality for the majority of advertisers.   With smartphone penetration in Australia being so high and continuing to increase it would be an oversight for any brand owner or retailer to fail to build mobile versions of their content and platforms.   Location based searching brings a world of opportunity – your potential customers are searching for you at POS.  Will their experience be a pleasant one?

Patty Keegan from digital training business - Digital Chameleon.  Patty's Profile appeared in September 2010.

Some of the areas we see as hotspots this year are content marketing, mobile, social, and analytics.

In 2012, we see Content Marketing getting the kind of buzz social media has enjoyed in recent years.  In order to feed the search and social media beasts, everyone has to become a content creator.  Not only editors, but every marketer needs to figure out how to produce valuable content and turn it into multiple digital assets. 

Key areas to watch in the mobile space are digital wallets (NFC chips), continued growth of mobile search, more location-based ads and deals, and more voice recognition applications. Companies will continue to determine how many mobile/tablet platforms they need to develop content for.

A trend in social to watch will be clickstreaming, or frictionless sharing among social applications. In terms of audience, sites like Facebook will focus less on acquisition and more on metrics such engagement and time spent.  In terms of advertising, social sites will introduce measures such as likeability and sentiment into their ad rankings for improved advertising relevance.

As marketers increasingly struggle with the concept of Big Data, there will be a demand for people and tools that can provide value in terms of analytics and retrieving actionable insights from data. Particularly interesting will be tools and dashboards around cross-channel attribution.

Nathan Bush, Head of Interactive Strategy at BCM Partnership.  Nathan's Profile appeared in August 2009.

We’re going to see a lot of mobile house cleaning after the big party. We’ve gone through the exciting phase of the first cool apps and now everyone will settle down and make sure that their mobile site is optimized, their mobile search is strong and content tailored for a mobile audience. In 2012, mobile is serious business.

Social media will go behind closed doors. We’re going to see marketing teams take more and more control over their social presence. This will come as more people understand that the value and ROI for social media is in personal service rather than mass marketing.

The content keeps flowing and we’re doggy paddling. We’re going to see more and more blogs due to Wordpress and Blogger’s continual rise. It’s never been easier to start one. However, the quantity rise does not correlate with quality. We are going to rely more and more on recommendations - both personal and algorithmical – to make sure we are absorbing the best content in the least amount of time.

Andrew Lockwood, Managing Director or Premium Ad Sales Network - Postclick & Chairman of IASH Aust.  Andrew's Profile appeared in October 2010.

There will be an increased shift in ad dollars to Video even though there is a lot of crossover between what the various video networks are selling.  I expect new content providers to spring up to fill that gap in demand vs supply of video inventory ..

New DSP’s will enter the market from abroad  very shortly which will further drive the placement of ad dollars via agency trading desks but equally too as the commoditisation of ad inventory increases the publishers or networks with strong value content suitable for an affluent or business decision  making audience will continue to prosper and networks or businesses with no real defining technology or points of difference will suffer further . Whilst relationships in media are important the continued increase in spend on online will mean all participants will be looking for greater efficiencies in how they run their businesess and with economic  uncertainty causing marketers to be extra cautious with their ad spends,  more than ever defining ones value proposition & niche in this market will be critical ..

Aden Hepburn - Head of Digital at IdeaWorks+Y&R Sydney & in his spare time, creator of one of the most popular digital blogs worldwide - Digital Buzz.  Aden's profile appeared in September 2011

This year I think we'll see the huge push into mobile we've been expecting for the last year or two, it won't just be the innovators playing here in 2012, apps will be seen more as utilities and brands will increase their focus on driving localised mobile experiences. NFC campaigns will start to create headlines with leading brands jumping straight in to create Australian firsts...

Social will start being placed at the core of most businesses, the shift is finally here, and we'll see it radiating into every touch-point. Hopefully, new products and services will be created socially outwards too and be consumed across multiple devices, which might also trigger the decline (or slow death) of the dedicated social guru, replaced with broader digital thinkers.

We'll also see the impact of responsive design start to take shape, increasing the demand for greater user experiences that span across all devices.

In terms of people, we'll continue to see a lack of new talent grown in the volumes required to supply agencies and brands. So we'll start to attract (perhaps hunt) a growing number of highly skilled professionals from the U.S. to fill mid-snr positions across our entire industry as demand continues to increase.

Video will be absolutely everywhere as content makes a big push into video form across just about every touch-point, helped by more accessible real-time streaming platforms.

Personalisation of content and entire digital experiences will probably heat up too, with a rush to create unique user experiences based off your browsing history and real-time social context.

Thank you to all past Digital People for their valuable insights.  If you'd like to add your predictions for 2012 please feel free to comment below.  I look forward to bringing you more views and opinions from the best and most experienced in the digital media industry throughout the year.

If you have any comments regarding Digital People please feel free to get in touch - denise@mediascope.com.au or phone:  0424 100325.  I welcome your feedback.