The Gartner Group have published their Social Media predictions for 2010 and beyond.
Gartner analysts acknowledge that a lot has happened with social software and collaborative software in 2009, and that there’s been a growing use of Facebook and Twitter by business. But their predictions for beyond 2010 don’t read so encouragingly.
The five predictions are:
1. By 2012 over 70% of IT department led Social Media initiatives will fail
- similarly, only 50% of business led social media initiatives will succeed
- but, even to enable these successes the Gartner analysts warn organisations that they will need new skills sets around designing and delivering Social Media solutions
2. By 2012 over 50% of organisations will be using microblogging. But, only 5% of these will be stand-alone/single purpose enterprise microblogging applications – the rest being consumer services like Twitter
3. Post 2012 social software market growth will accelerate as will the overall impact of Social Media on business and society
4. By 2014 social media will replace email for 20% of users for business communication
- essentially, microblogging is better than email for status updates and expertise location within the organisation
- therefore, Gartner recommends organisations must develop:
- long-term strategy for collaborative and social networking software services, and
- policies governing the use of consumer services for business purposes
5. In terms of analytic’s, by 2015 some 25% of enterprises will utilise social-network analysis to improve performance and productivity. Social-network analysis (and here) is used to examine interaction patterns and information flows among people and groups within the organisation, and among business partners and customers. The Gartner analysts claim that this is an untapped source of insight – but requires trust and buy-in, due to privacy & confidentially concerns
More information available from Gartner: “Predicts 2010: Social Software in an Enterprise Reality” – http://www.gartner.com/resid=1243515
