Our 2012 Predictions: Social Media

We predict 2012 will be the year of Social Media and business. Whilst some platforms such as Facebook tend to flounder (in our opinion) to find a niche to make businesses sit within a social environment, some such as Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn will enjoy success. Measurement tools such as Klout will play a heavier role in defining Social media users into groups, encouraging clever communication with others to improve their Klout score.

QR codes (the square barcode-type stamps you’ll see on some advertisements) were becoming popular during 2011. Whilst we don’t feel that they will set the market alight this year (unless Apple builds a QR code reader directly into their next iPhone model), we’ll see an increase in the uses for these codes. Mail order companies and supermarkets may begin to offer scannable product pages to make shopping even easier – see this example.

The days of dreary tables of facts and figures are gone, and now everyone from the data analyst to the casual reader will be soaking up statistics through an increased use of infographics. These colourful visual representations of data are increasingly finding their way onto more visual based social media platforms, such as Pinterest, Tumblr and Reddit.