The field of social media is constantly changing, and as such it is quite difficult to make any predictions about it, and expect it to hold true for a long time to come. Still, by observing prevailing trends on social media in the last quarter of 2011, we have made three predictions, which we believe could hold true for at least the first half of 2012. Here they are:

Mobile users will outshine PC users in terms of social media usage

Even in Q4 2011, mobile users were almost on the verge of taking over PC users in terms of social media usage. In 2012, the former are bound to finish the job. It can be expected that within Q2 2011, mobile users will very likely take over PC users, and access more social media content than those using any other medium can possibly do, on any given day. There will also be a huge rise in the number of mobile websites, as more and more people stop using their PCs to browse the Internet, using their smartphones to do the same, instead.

Rate of usage of social SEO will reach an all time high, with more UGC

UGC, or User Generated Content, has been gaining plenty of attention from social media marketers for quite some time now. These days, if a person is planning to buy a new TV, he does not check ads as much as he used to do even a couple years ago. He logs on to Facebook or Twitter, and looks for brands of TVs that have received the most recommendations. Once that is over, he heads over to Yelp, to find out just how good the product is. All these sites feature nothing but user generated content. In 2012, this tendency is almost guaranteed to rise to a great extent, among consumers across the globe.

Every business will have an app for their customers

Even in 2011, a lot of businesses have been attracting probable future customers by offering them smartphone apps for free. In 2012, this trend is bound to continue, with almost every business out there getting some sort of app built for customers. And each app is likely to have buttons linked to the companies’ social media networks, so that users can share those with their friends, thereby boosting the number of downloads of the apps even more.

The field of social media is always evolving, and the success of businesses now depend on careful monitoring and usage of the various channels by company personnel. As time progresses, this trend is likely to continue. And that’s something we do not need to predict.

Citizens of Singapore have been known to remain more active on social media networks (like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube) than people of many other technologically advanced countries. However, the question remains – just how social media savvy are they? In a series of recent studies, some interesting facts and figures have been revealed, regarding the social media usage of Singaporeans. Here are just a few of those facts:

1. 82% Singaporeans using Internet have personal accounts on social media networks, and share photographs via those networks on a frequent basis.

2. There are more than 2.4 million Facebook users, who claim to be from Singapore.

3. More than 13% of Singapore citizens who browse the Internet on a regular basis visited Twitter in January 2011.

4. Citizens of Singapore have uploaded more than 250 million videos on various online multimedia sharing websites. The combined length of those videos would be more than 25 million hours.

These are just 4 of the facts about Singaporeans, who actively use various social media networks on a regular basis. The citizens of this Asian nation are among the most active social media users across the globe, and in the coming years, the world is pretty likely to witness major boosts to these statistics.

Could cops be able to protect citizens better by using social media networks in their line of work? Well, it certainly seems like that, if the recent trends prevailing in the UK are any indication. As we all know, just a few days ago, London, and many other nearby cities were being torn apart by forces of armed rioters. That was when victims and concerned citizens found that using social media would allow them to get in touch with police quickly when necessary, and chose to use it in order to inform law enforcement officials about any act of hooliganism they survived, or even witnessed.

The result of the decision was that social media networks, particularly Twitter channels of many police stations showed a steep rise in the numbers of followers. In London only, the Twitter channel of the Metropolitan Police Force gained followers at 674% faster rates than usual. In the nearby Debfordshire, the rate was around 540%, which is another unbelievable spike!

Does this indicate that in near future, citizens might just be able to file FIR-s from the safety of their homes? Well, it might be a little too early to predict that, but the concept is nevertheless quite promising, don’t you think?

Just 3 weeks old, it has over 20 million users, and the number is rising steeply each day. Naturally, social media gurus are busy debating whether Google+ can become a real competitor to Facebook and Twitter in the long run. Digital marketers too are reshaping their strategies as they find new ways to use Google+.

Google+ expertly incorporates some of the best features of both Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s being used not just as a platform to catch up with your friends and family, but its unique “Circles” feature allows it to be used as a powerful professional social media tool as well. People are already hiring on Google+ (after all, there are 20 million potential candidates in there already), so here’s how you can use this tool to grab a share of the pie.

• Make sure your profile is complete. All your education details, work experiences (if any), strengths, and so forth should be there for potential employers to find. Once this is done, state that you are looking for work in your status. However, you need to attract attention among a virtual ocean of updates and messages, so keep it short, sweet and interesting. And of course, don’t sound desperate! It never makes a good impression.

• Manage your contacts with the help of Circles. Keep all your professional contacts together in separate Circles. When you post updates about your job search, see to it that Circles which contain potential employers are receiving your messages. At the same time, remember that sharing unprofessional content with your professional contacts is never wise. It’ll damage your image.

For more tidbits on Google+, stay tuned to our blog!

If you are asked, “When was Google+ launched?”. You will certainly come up with, “Uh, just a few days back, couple of weeks maybe.” And, you are almost pitch perfect. Yes, Google+, the newest social networking service, was released just 3 weeks back, in the last month.

Now, hopefully you have received an invitation to join this service, and did become a member, as well. But, could you tell how many people are using Google+ at the present moment? Hold on, this isn’t as easy as it may seem. After some serious thinking, you can confidently come up with, “200,000 or 300,000, I guess.” But with these, you’re way behind . Wild guesses won’t just hold any good. So, without any further dilly-dallying, let us reveal the actual number of members Google+ has presently got.

It’s 20 million, with 5 million from the US alone!

Wait, there’s more to this. Google+ is still very young, as compared to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, but its one of the busiest social media platforms we have got. According to recent reports, on an average 1 billion items are being shared between the users of Google+ every single day. No doubt, businesses are doing their best to find out different ways they can use this social networking platform to their benefit.

Whether Google+ will be able to go beyond its fellow competitors in terms of membership and usage, that’s something we will have to wait and watch. Till then keep coming back to us for more news and updates on Google+ and all that’s happening in the world of social media!