12 Social Media Trends for Social Enterprise in 2011

2010 saw many ups and downs in the environmental space, including the shocking BP oil spill. For 2011, many environmentalists have high hopes, as 2010 gave more reason than ever to improve the way ethical business thinks about the triple bottom line. In this article, I'll cover ways your social enterprise can and should use social media/ social marketing in 2011.

Before delving into what's in store for 2011, let's check out what happened in 2010 around social media for business and social enterprise.

Some Google favorites around social media trends for 2010 include two Mashable lists (Mashable list and other Mashable list), both of which include social buying sites like Grupon and mobile advertising. According to Bloomberg, social media trends focused around niche marketing (the kind that Max Gladwell probably enjoyed seeing with his successful TED spaghetti sauce case study on the importance of niche marketing). On the other side, Jeremiah Owyang (@owyang) focuses mainly on how businesses can keep up in the social media space noting, "real time is *not* fast enough".

As for ethical-focused social media, Community Organizer 2.0 Debra Askanase (@askdebra) had some great thoughts on social media for sustainability-focused business and non-profits for 2010's trends. For non-profits, the Non-profit Technology Network recommendeds to-do's for 2011 that include enabling mobile [ie. giving campaigns and mobile-enabled homepages] and increasing engagement through interaction with social communities.

Onto 2011 trends, there are many greats including Social Media Explorer, who includes QR codes (scannable barcodes for mobiles). Reuters tells us 2011 will bring bigger and better cause-a-thons, "will gain in popularity as savvy entrepreneurs will capitalize on the relationship-building advantages." Looking forward, Entrepreneur.com recommends watching out for video content streaming straight from blogs.

After having observed and executed numerous social media outreach strategies in 2010, it seems the following could be employed and improved:

1. Augmented reality for meetings--starting off with telepresence meeting spaces. Being in a social media space, meetings and webinars are an important element of learning capabilities brought about through online communications. @Tomraftery talked on successfully using telepresence with SAP in December 2010. Skype will continue with its market share despite it's one-day outage. I'm still an avid consumer, not because they gave me $1.00 credit, but rather, the CEO's apology e-mail.

2. Location-based technologies more important. Forget about handing fliers to cars, apartment, houses, cars or bicycles. Your green business should be easily accessible via Foursquare, Facebook Places and Gowalla. Learn from Whole Foods Market, who has had lots of success.

2011 may bring more niche green location-based technology like the Locavore

App, Green Map app or Travel Efficient app via MapQuest (thanks to the Daily Green).




3. Social media planning. No longer is set up a Facebook and Twitter account and just do it going to be good enough. Brain Solis said it, "failing to plan is planning to fail". Don't worry, Mashable has the social media plan in 5 steps. Social media plans look much like marketing plans and should contain a 'Background' of your company, Objectives, Key messages, Problem (ie. target audience you're trying to connect with) and Solutions (ie. which social media tools you'll use and how).

4. Social buying. Grupon has revolutionized the way we buy things; together. Carrotmob, on the other hand, has enabled group purchasing to improve business' responsibility. Now, companies like GreenDeals.org have the opportunity to capitalize on the green consumer market.

5. Question & Answer. Your newest way to find out what your audience is asking about? Quora is taking the market by storm but these sites likely won't have a green equivalent. But already, the uptake on this has been massive. This is, again, other way to learn more about your target audience through interaction.

6. Mobile advertising (especially with-in Adroid and iPhone apps) and mobile giving. While Haiti continues to struggle with its infrastructure 2010 showed the Red Cross continues to have major success in the text-to-donate and online giving donation platforms aiding Haiti's recovery.

7. Use metrics! Know how successful your social media outreach campaigns have been through Google Analytics or HootSuite's statistics.

8. I agree with DreamGrow that campaigns will get more dynamic, integrating off- and online actions. This means integrating your online campaigns with offline outreach. It's simple; once you're in full swing of your campaign, you make your people offline see your online community. Marketing your online community will get bigger and more information and transparency will contiune to be key!

9. Social media incentives. How are you rewarding your consumers? I agree with this Host Wisely list saying it might look like a discount or membership card.

10. Know your audience by name. Speaking of wisely, your customers are going to be more self-interested. Knowing your target audience is more important than ever. @Lornali spoke on this in 2009 covering green-only social networks. In 2011, new networks will spring up--targetted toward the sustainability community. Katie Fehrenbacher, on behalf of GigaOm brought up another list of 10 green social networks. In 2011, green marketer's should be more interested than ever to see where their consumers are. If more green networks spring up, proliferate your strategy!

11. Sharing. The Real stuff I mean. Websites that enable you to reduce your consumption through social media sharing will get bigger and better, like Rentalic or Toolzdo.











12. Count our carbon emissions. Accenture noted this might happen through more mobile applications--likely targeted toward individual emissions reductions. More social media campaigns will start to measure the carbon emissions alongside ROI, like Envido has done in the UK.