Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

For better or worse, younger consumers are more able to form meaningful relationships through digital channels.
That, at least, is according to new research from digital marketing agency Deep Focus, which based its findings on a survey of 901 “mainstream” 18-34s, and 302 18-34 “trendsetters,” late last year.

In fact, more than one-third of this demographic now consider “eLationships” as meaningful as in-person relationships, Deep Focus finds.

Plus, nearly a third (32%) of the young respondents reported feeling “close” to people they had only met online, while more than three-quarters (76%) said they had friendships based solely on social-media interactions....

What do buyers say is the most important signal of vendor credibility? What type of content is most effective? What do marketers rate as the single most valuable SEO tactic? What are the top barriers to adopting social business practices?

Find the answers to these questions and many others in more than 100 social and online marketing stats from 20+ different sources....

I began this year by publishing my social media predictions for 2014 focusing on six key trends that I saw (and continue to see) evolving: Employee Advocacy, Google Plus, Paid Social, Content, The Visual, and Mobile Personal.

With the year coming to a close, it’s time to look ahead into what awaits us in 2015 and how we can spend the rest of the year better preparing for it.

Rather than just include my own predictions, as Community Manager for the CEO Registry’s SocialMedia.CEO community of social business leaders, I decided to reach out to the social media CEOs and see what their vision holds for all of us. Without further adieu, here are 10 social media predictions for 2015 from 10 social media CEOs....

Case study: Virgin America is using its Twitter presence to handle everything from seat changes to cocktail requests—even at 35,000 feet.

Steve Jenkins was waiting for takeoff when he noticed it—his boarding pass for Virgin America Flight 753, bound for San Francisco, was missing his frequent flier number. He could have flagged a flight attendant. He could have called customer service. Instead, Jenkins, the CEO of a Seattle-based gaming company, decided to pick up his phone and tweet.

Four minutes later, Virgin America responded:Jenkins messaged @VirginAmerica with his ticket details. He was all set before the plane left the tarmac."It would have taken me longer to call, go through the whole phone tree, find someone, and authenticate myself," he said. "And if I hadn't done it when I thought about it, I might have forgotten about it."...

Where does all of that real-time chatter go when the moment has passed? Some entrepreneurs think it could fuel the next generation of disruptive products.

“What are you doing right now?” Facebook asked its users in 2007.

The social network, and its peers, have since become less dedicated to the present moment. Facebook has created Timeline, a historic presentation of daily posts.Foursquare has turned its vault of real-time check-ins into a valuable recommendation engine. And Twitter recently launched a feature that allows users to download their tweet archives. For the first time, social media platforms are looking back.

By facilitating constant, real-time conversation, these platforms inevitably created a detailed log of the past. As a habit of sharing and an emerging quantified-self movement merge, the potential to recycle our real-time content grows.

The next big thing, some entrepreneurs believe, will leverage not “right now,” but “then.” Here’s why:

Content Gets Less Valuable Over Time. And Then It Gets More Valuable....