28 January 2010 | Author: M. Thomson SEO & Affiliate Consultant

Social media will evolve - track and justify it in your own back yard

With the widespread acknowledgment (has it ever been a secret?) that social media can work to benefit your digital marketing activities, brands everywhere have rushed - some at a faster pace than others - to share and distribute their content across an array of social media websites.

It's fairly uncommon now for someone to say "we have a video" without someone else saying "let's upload it to YouTube." But how will these social activities develop from here?

Sharing videos on YouTube has become the norm, but without increased innovation and functionality from the likes of Google's YouTube or Facebook, what else can we get from these platforms? When sharing content socially, businesses are bound to abide by their rules - and this is where social media could be set to change.

When people loosely think of social media, they tend to think outside of their current website. Established platforms often look greener with the promises of greater benefits, which makes perfect sense as these platforms are already established and successful, and can therefore prove to be less of a risk. But doesn't your own existing website already possess these same attributes?

In many cases, your own platform and establishment will exceed the reach of any social platform, yet brands continue to look towards external sources rather than their own.

Over the coming year, this could all be set to change. With the pockets of some of the internet's social media giants locked tight, bigmouthmedia predicts that 2010 could see brands gaining a better outcome from investing their own time and money in the creation of their own social platforms that conform to their own rules.

This can be seen as the basic evolution of the internet. In the early 1990s, many people were not skilled in creating their own websites, so they used the likes of Moonfruit or Yahoo!'s Geocities (R.I.P) as these had the ready-made platforms and tools to do so. This is the same stage many companies are at now with social media - it isn't cost-effective to create our own, so we kiddie back on others.

When the skill set increases and profit margins hit Director Level, this could change and social platforms could well be brought in-house to the brand's own website. Any business justification is easier when you have control, thus paying an employee to run a Twitter account may be seen less cost-effective compared to creating and managing a Twitter-like account on your own website.

Take celebrity Kirstie Alley's Phitter as an example - she controls the platform, so she can track, tag and easily justify its existence with figures that work for her business. This is what investors love and need.

Websites would then not need to create or manage accounts on social networks such as Twitter as a form of reputation management, as it would be no secret that the website had its own. There would be no red tape around what could and could not be said, as brands would be the proprietors of their own content.

While this theory should be taken lightly, we must remember that a popular Facebook clone, StudiVZ, was bought for an estimated $112 million (£69 million) by the German publishing company Holtzbrinck. StudiVZ could easily charge a small fortune to allow websites to host and maintain a social platform; let's see what Facebook's lawyers say about it first.

"No, it will never happen!" I hear you say; but why do you think Google Friend Connect or Facebook Connect were launched? Did the two giants see social media being grasped from their tight claws and taken elsewhere?

By creating such portable connect features, these companies can keep a small grasp on the user and on their money-making abilities, while allowing them to cross to other social platforms. It may be a coincidence, or they may have spotted this trend and thought they would act to prevent a loss of profit or market share.

Social media is evolving, and its rapid rate of growth and exposure has left it at a mature stage where it needs another avenue to continue its reign. Bigmouthmedia can see part of this evolution being in the backyard of websites, rather than on external platforms. Investment, tracking and justification all become a lot easier, especially when we're living in a financial epidemic.

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