The 2011 Round Up and 2012 Trends to Watch in Social Media Marketing

It’s been the best of years, it’s been the worst of years. My little list is going to be a bit self-centered, and serve as a best-of for 2011. Indulge me or forgive me, whichever is easiest. (grin)

The top news stories of 2011 as told by UBER.LA.

1. Google+ Launches (The Most Important Social Technology – Google Hangouts)
2. GoDaddy Balks and Still Loses Millions of Customers over SOPA < and the story continues
3. A father figure to thousands and mentor, Dan Jones, dies suddenly of pancreatic cancer
4. I’m hired as a high-level social media marketer but the CEO and VP of Marketing don’t "get" social media (I’ve got the scars and killer social metrics to prove it)
5. A new company, Social Factor, is born
6. A new client says yes, then no, then YES and we hit one out of the park
7. Steve Jobs heads to iHeaven, and his bio is just okay
8. Twitter takes a nose dive and The Twitter Way is still forthcoming
9. Facebook still sucks for business and community
10. I start my career in video production and release a free e-book (just like everyone else)
11. Occupy Wall Street disrupts the status quo, flounders for a message, goes global, governments crack down
12. I make a commitment to take "negative" out of this blog, proclaiming "positive is the new momentum."
13. Untimely deaths of two young people: Auggie Grant and Ben Breedlove

Also, suggested by readers:

• Facebook’s Timeline is enabled
• Pintrest gets viral
• Gowalla gets swallowed by Facebook and closes up shop in Austin
• Klout makes a splash, pisses a bunch of people off, and tries to do better

And here’s what’s coming on even stronger in 2012.

1. Google+ will continue to grow, but is not a threat to facebook or twitter
2. Mobile browsing reaches 35% of all web traffic (SearchEngineLand and ComScore Reports)
3. The iPad 3 will set the bar completely out of reach for Android tablets
4. The iPhone 5 will indeed ship
5. Social Factor will hire it’s 50th employee before the end of the year
6. Businesses will continue to sink billions into facebook commerce and facebook advertising with returns in the hundredth of a percent. 0.01
7. Twitter will continue to stumble, choked by scams, porn and coupons, they still won’t unlock the revenue model
8. Siri will become the hottest search engine on the web, Google releases an answer for Android, to little too late
9. Siri will agree to marry me
10. Social media will continue to be a buzz word rather than a solid strategy, and we will keep trying to show the way with strategic social media plans
11. ROI will not be the only goal of social media marketing
12. Bing will continue to grow it’s search usage, but not at the expense of Google search
13. SEO, SEM, SMM, social media, social marketing, social business will become know as "social" (that’s not going to happen)

Top Uber.la posts of 2011 by views:

Twitter Hack Could Cause Problems: The Latest Hack Got My Password (StalkTrak)	1,739
Writing a Plan for Your Future – A Career Path Template fr Boxes & Arrows	1,191
Apple vs Dell: The Summer Promo Deals In Your Inbox	1,053
Auto-Bots Are Killing Twitter; Why Auto-Social & Robot-Social is Bad for Social	905
The Twitter Way	883

TOP 2011 Videos (short-form):

• Hey Yoga Girl
• Shit Yogis Say
• Whole Foods Parking Lot
• Jack Sparrow w/ Michael Bolton (NSFW)
• I’m On a Boat w/ Justin Timberlake and T Pain (NSFW)
• 3-Way (The Golden Rule) Justin Timberlake w/Lady Gaga (NSFW)
• Dick in a Box w/Justin Timberlake (NSFW)
• Mother Lover w/Justin Timberlake (NSFW)
• Back to the Start (Chipotle with Willie Nelson doing a Coldplay song)

Top 2011 Movies (Long form):

• Inception
• Harry Potter (It All Ends)
• The Adjustment Bureau

… to be continued

Worst 2011 Movies (Long form)

• Cars 2
• The Muppets
• Transformers 3 (I loved 1 and 2)
• Rango
• Rio
• Gnomeo and Juliet
• Puss in Boots

… to be continued

Best Music Releases of 2011

• Foster the People
• Steven Malkmus (produced by Beck… to be continued)

 

Worst Music Releases of 2011

• Radiohead: King of Limbs
• Coldplay: Milxo Fdkreco (some dumb ass name)
• Fountain of Waynes: don’t even remember the title

And a few of the best 2011 > 2012 posts from around the web:

TechCrunch’s 2011 Tech Moments

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)

permalink: https://uber.la/2011/12/2011-2012-trends/

Check out the Social Media for Business page and these other posts about learning social media:

• The Problem with Twitter.com; Why Are Good Tweeters Dropping Like Flies & Not Flying Like Birds?
• Crack the Motivational Code: Put a Ding In Our Universe and Your Team’s Universe
• Work Life Balance and Survival; It’s Up to You to Grab It
• Facebook’s Community Value is 5% of 5% or 0.25% < A Failure to Communicate
• The Zero Ad Concept on Facebook and LinkedIn; Impressions for Free
• SEO: You Have to Know Your Search Engine to Understand How to Optimize – Content Marketing
• Single-Shot Social Media Strategy: LinkedIn (1-slide / 15-seconds)
• Social Media ROI Demands for 2012: Must See Charts for Marketing
• Going for the One on Google Search is Just a "Phrase Match" Away (Own It!)
• How to Get Useful Business Information Out of Twitter: Hashtags for Social Media Research

Tags: 2011 best of, 2011 review, 2011 year review, 2012 predictions, annual review, best of 2011, best-of, social business, social media in 2011, social media in 2012, social media marketing, social media predictions, tech crunch, top stories of 2011, year in tech