2011 – The year of Social and Mobile

Eleven and a half months ago, I sat down in the Webfirm boardroom with the rest of the team listening to our then General Manager, Matt Chamley, excitedly telling us where the business and online marketing industry was going in 2011. The industry was abuzz with talk of the predicted growth in mobile Internet, and the continuing rise of social media. I don’t think anyone really knew the scale of what was to follow in the next 12 months…

The year started with a bang, a REALLY BIG BANG! What has now been dubbed the Arab Spring, were uprisings that erupted across North Africa. Libya, Tunisia and Egypt have all been called “Twitter revolutions”. Whole governments have been overthrown and social media has been at the heart of it all, with people using the platform to finally make their voices heard. Later in the year Blackberry were forced to shut down their instant messaging service across London as it was being used to organize riots, as adults and youths tore apart the city. Through monitoring social media such as Facebook and Twitter, police made several arrests of people inciting violence.

Search giant, Google, once again attempted to break into the social media market with the Launch of Google+. The social platform was first made available to people in the technology industry and greeted with much excitement. Later, when the doors were opened to everyone else, uptake appeared to be slow. Time will tell if this will ever take off or remain a room full of geeks and online marketers. Local businesses have been scrambling to claim their Google Places pages as Google has given more priority to local searches. With the rise of mobile Internet, searching for businesses and services wherever you are has become second nature for many smart phone users already. 2011 has been an exciting year, and I have no doubt the next 12 months will have just as many surprises for us. Watch this space.

Webfirm is a specialist online marketing agency – talk to us today about any online marketing needs, including social or mobile – phone us on 1300 932 347 or email us at info@webfirm.com.

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