Mediaboss Marketing

In 2013, social networking took on a whole new meaning and became a veritable beast, hard to tame. For those who share their personal life on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, or all of the above, the internet has made it possible for anyone to keep track of them and vice versa. With new social networking platforms appearing from behind every corner, it may be hard for one to decide where to commit time and resources. As 2013 comes to an end, it's important to look ahead to where social networking is going, and how we can get on board.

Investment in social media will become a necessity

Arguably, investing time and resources into a social media strategy was a necessity in 2013 but it is believed that the tipping point in public sentiment from 'should have' to 'must have' will occur in 2014.

Businesses are already coming to terms with the need to integrate their social media efforts with their content strategy, and are seeing the impact of social media in terms of reach, referral traffic, and revenue. Seeing these very real and measurable benefits, there would be a change from social media tasks being assigned to existing employees to companies hiring social media strategists or full-time social media managers.

The benefits of social media are many and include company branding, improved brand awareness, and increased customer loyalty and trust. Social media is also one of the three pillars of SEO.

Google+

While Facebook continues to lead the pack in terms of number of active monthly users (1.15 billion at last count), Google+ is quickly gaining steam and now has the second highest number of monthly users (343 million).

With Google using the platform to collect personal information (demographics, location, etc.), Google+ should no longer be thought of as 'just' another social network. It's increasingly proving itself to be an integral part of Google's grand scheme in terms of SEO, social signals and providing a more personalised search experience. This is especially apparent with the growing importance of Google Authorship, which most likely would be one of the key components to Google's search ranking algorithm by the end of 2014.

Businesses who are finding themselves spread thin with their social media efforts will increasingly turn to Google+ as the closest thing to a 'one-size-fits-all' social network.

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Nigeria: Top Social Media Networks That May Dominate 2014