The Social Media Club of San Francisco had its first event of the year on Tuesday, January 25, 2010 at the newly opened shared office space, RocketSpace. A panel consisting of industry thought leaders, known as Influencers in Social media circles, included Sol Lipman, Director of Mobile at AOL and formerly of 12Seconds, Harry McCracken of Technologizer and Time.com, Augie Ray of Forrester and Shel Israel, a Social Media Consultant and co-author of the book Naked Conversations.
It was a full house and it was quite apparent that this was the Social Media Club by the name-tags featuring just one’s Twitter Handle. Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club started off the event with a video featuring Social Media professionals from Adobe, Facebook, Research in Motion, Intel and Sony Electronics at CES who spoke about what they thought was in store for 2011. The common themes that emerged were the hopes for more content creation, scaling, community and more, oh please, more attention to Social Media to get consumers to use their products.
Israel spoke first about the trends of social media in 2011. He talked of normalizing social media so that success isn’t measured by the number of people that follow you. He feels the question of ROI will be all about good business and using the right tools to get the job done well. He sees a future where the ability to easily translate and communicate around the world will become a reality along with the Internet becoming truly ubiquitous. He also summed up his thoughts regarding 2011 trends in his blog, Global Neighborhoods.
McCracken sees the social mobile web as the new frontier similar to how it was for the web back in 2005. “The social mobile network is doing well now and will continue to do so in the future.” He sees Facebook as something that people will use without even thinking about it as a social network. He is seeking clarity in the future of the dominance of the mobile social network, the dominance of Facebook and how companies will control the social aspects of the web. His blog Technologizer features his thoughts about the mobile social network in-depth too.
ROI to Ray will no longer be the focus of social media. ”Its not the year of the ROI obsession where one needs to provide it in order to get financing. It is also not the year of Facebook or Four Square.” He sees FourSquare as limited by handsets carried and not all have location-based services needed to use them. Proving his point, he conducted a survey of the audience asking how many are on FourSquare and most raised their hand. When asked how many check-in as frequently as they did when first on the service, less than a third raised their hands. Additional great insights are found in his blog, Augie Ray’s Blog.
Last to speak and also most entertaining was Lipman, who talked of trends in terms of what the new and hip AOL is seeking when hiring a Social Media guru. They are interested in someone who is all about niche social networks, personalization and building social connections, about content that appeals to all audiences and one who will focus on iPad devices. If you have what it takes, you should contact The Solster.
If you have not already joined the Social Media Club, you can do so here and connect with others who are passionate about learning and sharing what social media can provide to your organization and community. You can also join the conversation about this event at #SMCSFO
