A New Year, New Social Media Opportunities

In just the first month of 2010, we have witnessed the Longhorns play an historic BCS Championship game against the Crimson Tide (and suffer a heartbreaking loss, ending an eight-time winning streak against that team) and record-breaking temperatures in Austin (the coldest in nearly 20 years; ten degrees at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on January 9).

While the new decade has brought quite a bit of excitement in just the first two weeks, my guess is 2010 has much more in store for us.

Take social media, for example. Studies show that while many businesses “explored” social media in 2009, it appears they have merely scratched the surface. According to a new survey by Weber Shandwick’s Social Impact team (conducted with KRC Research), 61 percent of nonprofit and foundation professionals view social media as an effective method of reaching broad external audiences. Because of this, most of them (a whopping 85 percent) plan to use social media more extensively in the next two years, and most will increase their budgets for this type of marketing in 2010. Companies are quickly learning that they need additional employees (and, in some cases, departments) to implement their social media campaigns and to track their effectiveness.

Geotagging, which enables people to add their exact location to their “tweets,” for example, may also increase the value of social media for marketers this year. (This option is already available on Twitter, under “settings,” then “account.”)  What will that mean for us, as social media users? Well, for one, I’ve read that it could allow restaurants to “buzz” our phones as we pass by, alerting us to specials or discounts.

Bottom line, social media campaigns won’t work unless you commit to them. How many times have you visited someone’s social media page (or even a company’s page) only to find the last “status update” or “tweet” was posted three months ago? Using social media for a business can be time-consuming, but studies show it may be well worth your time. So take the time to keep things current. In fact, why not make it your New Year’s resolution?

I’ll see you around the social media scene in 2010!

-Erin Ochoa