Wondering what the next big thing in the world of social media will be in 2014? We’ve been wondering, too, so we took to the internet to find a few answers – or at least best guesses.
Below are five of the most interesting predictions we found, all from people in the know. Enjoy!
#television. Uri Bar-Joseph is director of marketing at Simply Measured,* a social media measurement and analytics solution, where he leads the company's demand generation efforts. In an article for searchenginewatch.com,* 
Bar-Joseph wrote that thanks to innovations like Roku, Tivo and smart TVs, “social is moving into TV.”
As evidence, Bar-Joseph references “The Voice” using real-time voting via Twitter* to determine which contestant got saved from elimination. He believes social media’s influence will only expand in 2014. “It will start with simply allowing the audience to choose a story line, ending or character,” Bar-Joseph wrote, “but will morph into fully personalized watching experiences based on social profiles, interaction and behavior.”
Power Shift. In the same article, Bar-Joseph wrote about his wife, who he describes as an excellent physician and brilliant surgeon. He also notes her reputation generally is limited to “her network of patients and to the little marketing her hospital does to promote her clinic.”
In 2014, however, Bar-Joseph predicts members of the public services sector, like his wife, will embrace social media “in new and innovative ways,” mirroring what already has taken place in business and commerce. The result, he wrote, will be a similar shift of power from sellers to buyers.
Now You See It, Now You Don’t. HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes* wrote in an article for Fortune magazine’s website* about the growing appetite for transitory networks like Snapchat, where content disappears soon after it is received.
“As content on the major networks becomes more corporate and commoditized,” Holmes wrote, “Snapchat and services like it restore some of the fun and spontaneity to social media. Just like a real-life interaction – where ideas flow freely and you generally don’t worry about everything being recorded for posterity and broadcast to the world – Snapchat and networks like it offer a channel for genuine, unfiltered exchange. And the kids really like it. While Facebook’s own CFO officially acknowledged last month that teen use of his network is declining, the number of teens on Snapchat – at least anecdotally – is exploding.”
Social Acceptance. In a blog at hootsuite.com,* Holmes predicted current social media managers will see their jobs morph into something more akin to “social media evangelists.”
Holmes’ belief, however, isn’t based on social media use decreasing in business. Instead, he sees tools like Facebook and Twitter becoming the responsibility of more and more employees.
“So in 2014, let’s lay the social media manager role to rest as we see more companies than ever recognize social media skills as a must-have asset for all of their employees. Meanwhile, we’ll see those previously in the social media manager role evolve into seasoned digital experts, spreading the gospel of social throughout their entire organizations.”
New Knowledge. In the same hootsuite.com blog,* Vice President of Marketing Dee Anna McPherson* mentions the stories we’ve all heard, the ones in which job candidates are rejected because of something a potential employer saw on a social profile.
And while those kinds of stories might not end anytime soon, McPherson does believe “increasing numbers of students and candidates will be rejected if they do not have robust and relevant social profiles” as “social media proficiency becomes a core competency in the workplace.”
As a result, McPherson believes “innovative schools and educators … will begin teaching social media and digital skills as part of their formal curriculum.” McPherson also touts a 15-lesson program at Syracuse University’s communications school that trains students “in all things social media, including building a social media strategy for business and social media marketing tactics. After completion, they’ll walk away with an Advanced Social Media Strategy Certificate,* from HootSuite and (Syracuse’s) Newhouse School.”
It also seems worth mentioning that Syracuse is hardly the only school* integrating social media and social media skills into its curriculum. If anything is a safe prediction, in fact, it seems to be that social media’s influence will continue to grow … and grow … and grow.*
Links marked with * go to a third-party site not operated or endorsed by Arvest Bank, an FDIC-insured institution.