What started as something small has grown into a rather large predictions party.
We saw about 50 content marketing and social media predictions for 2009. For 2010, there were over 100 predictions from 70 of the leading marketing experts.
This year over 100 of the industry’s thought leaders have come together to collectively throw down the magic eight ball on what 2011 will bring for content marketing and social media.
It’s a great (and very thorough) read, and definitely worth it [Download it here].
Upon reviewing all of them, here are some of the interesting trends that kept popping up.
- Facebook will take over the world in 2011, apparently becoming an added appendage to most humans on the face of the planet.
- While content marketing was clearly accepted in 2010 as a viable marketing practice, 2011 is the year where the majority of companies get serious about it – adding to budget, getting better at measurement, and begin to develop internal processes and staffing around the consistent creation of content.
- Marketers will become less obsessed with the channel (i.e. Twitter, Facebook) and get more focused on the story itself. Quality, consistent and differentiated content wins.
- Mobile Apps, gamification and 2011 as the year of the authentic brand relationship all stood out.
- Curation, curation, curation.
From a big picture perspective, it looks like the novelty of social media has worn off, and the idea that brands are now media companies is in full force.
If I had one sentence to sum up this year’s content marketing and social media predictions, it would be this:
2011 is the year that brands get serious about becoming media companies.
Thanks to our over 100 contributors this year and to zmags for putting the predictions ebook together. Download it here.
Finally, below is a Wordle of ALL the predictions. Interesting stuff.
