Twitter

We’ve let you have the floor, now it’s our turn. Here’s what we think you’ll see lots more of in 2011.

Community. Welcome to the buzzword that won’t die. Are you building community? How are you nurturing your community? What kind of community do you have?

We think this word will take over for the word “engagement.”

BUT…Community will continue – and continue to make sense for marketers and communicators who have to sell this social stuff to the board room.

Want to engage your customers? Meh.

Turning your customers into a community, though, makes a heck of a lot more sense. Community is something you build. People want to join a community that makes them feel welcome. Look for this buzzword to have some meat to it in 2011.

Accountability. Marketers have struggled with this for ages – and, if you’re in the social media industry (there is one), you’re probably smack dab in-between ad people and PR people. And both sides have all the answers. And neither side wants to relinquish control. And…

The web, the social media revolution, internet marketing, holistic social media – all that stuff rolled into one gives marketers the ability to measure almost infinite amounts of stuff. Which means accountability moves to the forefront.

The key on this Accountability movement – getting internal silos to talk to each other. Analytics people – meet the PR team. Ad guys – here are the sales gals.

Spend $10,000 on social? Quantify it to $50,000 in sales. Or move on. Soft sciences – like “brand value” and “sentiment” – those will start to disappear.

QR Madness. Last year, you probably could have said that “every brand will have a Twitter account” and been correct. This year, the prediction is that every brand will jump into the QR pool with both feet.

They have to – these little code thingies are becoming vital because so many people don’t use the web on their computer. They use it on their phone. (An estimated 40% of Facebook users are accessing Facebook from a mobile device.)

These codes will give rise to scavenger hunts, brand marketing pieces, interactive content, the list goes on.

TV goes live, again. Awesome article in the most recent issue of Fast Company that talks about TV’s use of Twitter. Here’s a link to it, we suggest you read it immediately.

Gist: Shared experiences are back.

If you think about Twitter as a real-time conversation engine, then you can see the potential. People start talking about Justin Beaver (what one of the #224lings calls him), then there’s a rush to see what is happening with the Biebs. Next, you find out that he’s on some show right now. It’s a shared experience.

Time-shifting Glee is okay. Watching Glee while millions of others watch Glee AND commenting with them on whether or not Gwyneth can actually sing: the water cooler isn’t waiting for you in the office the next morning, it is happening right now as you watch the program.

And Brand Marketers can glean lots from what is said.

Your turn: what are the trends you see coming down the 2011 pike?