11 Trends by Armano and Rubel – and my take for Germany.

Steve Rubel and David Armano of Edelman  just released 11 trends to watch in 2011. Most are to be expected, when reading the tech / social media blogosphere. But still a good curation, as they call it themselves:


.

The trends overview:

  • Attentionomics – Marketers begin to realize the value of attention and not just reach in driving conversion
  • Digital Curation – The plethora of content will give rise to digital curators who can separate art from junk
  • Developer Engagement – Marketers typically don’t try to court developers, but that’s all about to change
  • Transmedia Storytelling – If there’s one constant it’s that humans crave stories. Technology creates new expectations
  • Thought Leadership – Companies recognize they must activate credible individual expert voices who can create content
  • The Integration Economy – Social media efforts can no longer exist in fragmented, non-formal initiatives. They begin to integrate
  • Ubiquitous Social Computing – As competition heats up mobile devices, consumers closer to being socially connected anywhere
  • Location, Location, Facebook – If 2010 belonged to solely Foursquare, it’s likely that Facebook will rain on their parade in 2011
  • Social Media Schizophrenia – Social overload is no longer a problem for tech mavens, but a broader population
  • Google Strikes Back – Google proves that the best way to beat Facebook & Twitter is to do what they do best: index them to pieces
  • Viva La Social Web Site – Businesses realize that integrating social functionality into their existing web sites is what users now expect

(Taken from Dave Armano’s blog)

With respect to the German landscape, here are some of my takes on it:

  • I really hope that the discussion moves away from „reach“ towards „attention“, and that we will find adequate KPI. But somehow I doubt that either will happen in 2011 already.
  • I am sure we’ll see a lot more transmedia storytelling (which I like),
  • as well as more integrate approaches, at least within the bigger and more advanced companies, after having done their baby steps on the social web in the last years.
  • Facebook will increasingly dominate the social web in Germany, with nearly 14 Million Germans having joined the network. It will also dominate marketing efforts and agency briefings.  One should hope that users won’t get fed up by too many lame marketing approaches.
  • Location, Location: this will get bigger every year. However, whether or not Facebook will make the run really depends on their next updates to „places“. In it’s current state (in Germany), Places is simply boring.
  • Social Websites: this has already started well in 2011 in Germany, it will just be a strong continuation.