As the social media bandwagon continues to gather momentum, Quest PR is linking up with social media experts globally to hear their forecasts on what the future holds.

In this post US social media guru Gini Dietrich – a top Vistage speaker and PR consultant –  shares her fascinating insights.

• Foursquare: Retailers are going to figure out that consumers are checking into their locations and giving them all of their information. So if I check in at, say, my local Mexican restaurant, they now know that I am there every Friday, that I like salt on my margaritas, and that I always order the chili con queso. They also know that I live around the corner, that I’m female, and that I tend to bring at least three friends with me. So let’s say they participate in Foursquare as well. Now they can send me a message inviting me to bring in friends and for every three that check in, I get $10 off my bill. Or similar promotions and contests.

• Every business will embrace social media at some level. Some may only have policies in place. Some may only lift their firewalls that now prevent their employees from using the social networks at work. And others will use the tools as part of their larger communication, marketing, customer service, HR, and sales strategies.
  

Did you know the latest prediction is that corporate blogs will be more powerful and influential than websites in only two years’ time?  And, that almost 89 per cent of journalists are using them for their research.  That’s a scary thought  -  especially if you haven’t got one!

New blogs are being created every minute but not all appear to be hitting the mark. When we launched the whatifspecialist blog last year we did some research first. Here are some suggestions to help you get started.

Listen before launching

• Listen to what your customers and prospects and stakeholders are saying about you onlineUse Google’s blog search tool and type in your business name, products and competitors http://blogsearch.google.com
• search who is linking to your website and discussing it http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
• Once you know who is talking about you and where your traffic is coming from, you can develop a plan on where to focus your online campaign.

It’s fair to say that social media is not the fad that many predicted it to be. Now it’s more question of how far it can go. Because of this, I am probably one of hundreds of students this year to have chosen social media as my topic of choice for my final year research dissertation.

Before I embark upon the practical research element of my investigation, I have compiled my initial thoughts about the relationship between the discipline of public relations and the web 2.0 boom.

It seems quite clear that we will continue to see a fall in print circulations and a continued increase in memberships and participation on social media platforms. What’s more, increasingly it will be individuals who have the most influence rather than journalists and industry leaders.

This shift means that brands will be required to carefully consider their ‘personality’ and how they engage in a two way flow of information with consumers, maintaining transparency and in turn trust. It is also imperative that that all organisations have a crisis management plan in place which can respond immediately to the power of the social media community. There are now countless examples of ‘twitterstorms’ within the internet groundswell irreversibly damaging a brand’s reputation. A recent high profile example of this is the internet hype surrounding Paperchase’s plagiarism of an independent artist’s work. Paperchase’s poor handling of the situation prompted a barrage of negative tweets and blog posts about the stationary chain. Here’s the artist’s (Hidden Eliose) blog.

A storm was kicked up this month when Google launched Google Buzz.

It is seen as their attempt to enter social networking, an area traditionally occupied by companies who not long ago were mere saplings compared to mighty the Silicon Valley oak that is Google.

While the web is bursting with bloggers deriding it as an intrusion in to their email, a bigger issue is privacy – and one that highlights the need to be wary about jumping in to social media.

Many were alarmed that, before they had even started to play around with Google Buzz, the system had taken upon itself the duty to add their Google Mail contacts to their profile’s buddy list. A list that is marked from the start as open to the public. I don’t have anyone on my Google account I’m ashamed of, but in my opinion this is taking intrusion to a new level.

• How much time are you investing in social media?
• Do you have a social media strategy – and if so, is it aligned with your business plan?
• Are you reaping the benefits of corporate blogging?

I was delighted to read that almost 70 per cent of businesses plan to increase their social media marketing drive and 74 per cent will give their e-mail marketing campaigns more ‘wellie’ this year.  With 89 per cent of journalists using blogs for research and more businesses attracting new customers from social media, the term ‘Return on Investment’ has been replaced with ‘Return on Engagement’ – because it’s critical that we engage with our target audiences.

Before venturing into the world of PR when I was in my first year at University, a friend who lived in my halls exhorted me to join Facebook.  “Please sign up,” he said “I need more friends!”  I did so – and my relationship with the social networking site began.

In 2006, when opening my account, the site was only accessible to students from certain Universities.  Many of my school friends were excluded because their institutions weren’t on the fateful ‘list’. The creators of Facebook realised they were missing a trick and over the next couple of years the website became all inclusive. It now boasts 300 million people worldwide.

At the risk of sounding like some sort of reclusive computer-reliant super geek, I really don’t know how I would conduct my personal life without Facebook.  Now all my friends (and their friends) are members, it provides an excellent tool for all things social. I can count on one hand those who don’t use it in my peer group – a couple of whom found it was prohibitive to studying. For me Facebook is undoubtedly the mother of all procrastination tools. If you have work to do, you will invariably find yourself launching into a lengthy discussion on group page about how great slankets are (FYI they are great, I don’t agree with Grazia for once), or some other equally pointless topic.