Constant Contact has made some striking and bold predictions about social media in 2013. I’m going to focus on three of those.
- Social media will become a business-critical activity
- Images will be more important for audience engagement
- LinkedIn will become more important
All three of these predictions are bold in their own right.
First, on social media becoming more business-critical, it’s almost there now. The search engines have already started using social media signals for ranking purposes. But I think Constant Contact’s point is more about engagement – and I agree. Social media will rise as its own engagement necessity apart from the search algorithms.
Audience engagement is the most important consideration for any social media campaign. Any search benefits you get from social media are secondary and icing on the cake. Just as blogs increased in power and importance with the addition of images, so too will social media engagement be enhanced with images. In 2013, you should consider adding more images to your social media posts.
LinkedIn is in a steady climb. It’s been the place many professionals have gone when looking for a new job. Going forward, LinkedIn will be a great place to manage your entire professional life. This prediction is difficult because there are so many tools to help you do this, but I can see why Constant Contact predicts this.
2013 will definitely be the year for social media. Your mantra should be to post, engage, and inspire in 2013.