Hootsuite CEO 改变企业社交媒体使用方式的五大趋势

Duke University recently published a study on socialmedia that left many managers scratching theirheads. Social media spending at companies, thereport showed, currently represents 9% ofmarketing budgets, and that’s forecast to rise tonearly 25% within five years. But half of marketersinterviewed said they couldn’t show what impactsocial media had on their business – at all.

杜克大学最近发表的一份关于社交媒体的研究令许多企业管理者挠头。该报告显示，许多企业的社交媒体支出约占企业营销预算的9%，预计未来五年内，这个比例将激增到25%。但半数受访的企业营销人员表示，他们根本无法证实社交媒体对他们的企业究竟产生了哪些影响。

Critics were quick to call the surge in social media spending a case of throwing good moneyafter bad. From my perspective, however, these conflicting stats tell an entirely different story:that social media is evolving at breakneck speed and companies are struggling mightily to keepup. Businesses are reaching larger audiences and seeing increasing benefits, but the shiftingsocial media landscape makes getting consistent results – and measuring them – anenormous challenge.

很多批评人士认为，企业一窝蜂地在社交媒体上烧钱不过是在填一个无底洞。不过我认为，这些矛盾的数字却说明了另一个问题：社交网络正在以飞快的速度发展，同时企业也正不遗余力地跟上。虽然企业正在通过社交网络接触更多受众，也正在看到日益增加的好处，但持续变迁的社交媒体图景使得获得持续的成果，以及衡量这些成果，成为一个巨大的挑战。

In 2015, the pace of social media change is – if anything – poised to accelerate. But forbusinesses, there’s one important difference from the past. Hungry to monetize, the majornetworks are figuring out ways to make it simpler and more productive for companies toengage with customers. Meanwhile, tools are proliferating that make it easier to track theimpact of social media spending and even measure return on individual Tweets and posts.

2015年，社交媒体变革的步伐注定会进一步加快，但对于企业来说，现在与以往存在一个重大差异：主流社交媒体为了生钱，正在想方设法使企业能更轻松、同时更富有成效地与消费者进行互动。同时，随着各种工具的不断涌现，追踪社交媒体支出的成效，甚至衡量每一条微博的收益，也会变得更加简单。

In short, 2015 is the year that the impact of social media on business gets easier to show andpossibly impossible to ignore. Here’s a look into the crystal ball at what the year ahead holdsfor businesses:

简言之，2015年是企业利用社交媒体的成效更容易显现，也更不容易被忽视的一年。现在就让我们透过“水晶球”，看看明年的社交网络会给企业带来什么。

Staying relevant on Facebook will cost companies more

在Facebook上搞营销将花费企业更多的钱

Your company’s Facebook Page has thousands of Likes, so that means thousands of peoplesee your updates each time you post, right? Nope. Historically, Facebook’s proprietaryalgorithm limited reach to just 16% of brands’ fans. But a report published by researchers atPR firm Ogilvy earlier this year showed that number has since declined to around 6% and mayfall further. “Increasingly, Facebook is saying that you should assume a day will come when theorganic reach is zero,” explained the paper’s author, Marshall Manson.

你们公司的Facebook主页已经有了几千个粉丝，所以这意味着每次你更新内容的时候，都会有几千人看到，对不对?错!在Facebook专用算法的限制下，每条营销内容大概只会接触到一个品牌16%的粉丝。不过奥美公关公司的研究人员今年年初发表的一份报告显示，目前这个数字已经下降到6%左右，可能还会进一步下跌。该报告的作者马修o曼森认为：“Facebook等于是说，可能有一天，营销内容的‘自然触及人数’可能达到零。”

Why has this happened? First of all, there’s more potential content than ever flooding users’news streams, which means that less and less of it actually gets shown. At the same time,Facebook is encouraging companies to use its paid social ads, which reach a significantly largerpercentage of fans than organic posts. These so-called “native ads” look just like normalFacebook posts and show up directly in users’ news streams, not along the side of the page liketraditional banner ads.

那为什么会发生这种情况?首先，用户的消息流中，涌入的内容只会越来越多，也就意味着每条营销内容被看到的概率也会越来越低。与此同时，Facebook还在鼓励企业使用它的付费社交广告，它所触及到的用户要比企业发布的普通内容多得多。这些所谓的“原生广告”就像普通的Facebook消息一样，会直接显示在用户的消息流中，而不是像传统的横幅广告一样显示在网页边缘。

What does this mean for businesses in 2015? Staying relevant on Facebook FB 1.90% willrequire doubling down on paid social ad spending. At the same time, we’ll also see companiesdiversify their social media efforts to include other social channels, including Twitter TWTR1.25% , Instagram and even China-based messaging service WeChat. This “platform-neutral”approach is both a hedge against further changes at Facebook and a smart way to reachdifferent demographics flocking to other networks.

这对2015年的企业意味着什么?这意味着，要想在Facebook上做好“微营销”，企业可能要在付费社交广告上砸双份的钱。与此同时，企业还会把鸡蛋往其它的篮子里放几个，比如Twitter、Instagram甚至是中国的微信等等。这种广撒网的方法虽然对Facebook的未来发展不利，但对于企业来说不失为触及不同人口群体的好办法。

Finally, more tools to see if Tweets actually produce sales

如果“微营销”真能促进销量，我们还会看到更多的工具

It’s easy enough to flash around vanity metrics showing your company has thousands ofTwitter and Facebook followers or gets tens of thousands of Likes on Instagram. But how doesthat all translate to sales and revenue? Until now, that question has largely been evaded, withspending justified on the basis of vague terms like “exposure” and “mindshare.”

在Twitter或Facebook上有几千个数丝，或者在Instagram上收集几万个“赞”来秀一下虚荣心，的确不是很难的事。但它们如何转变成销量和收入?一直到现在为止，这个问题很大程度上都被规避掉了，企业在社交媒体上砸了那么多钱，只是基于“曝光度”和“注意力份额”等空泛的术语。

That’s changing, fast. A new crop of tools are bringing the same rigor to the social media salesprocess as older-generation measurement tools brought to the online sales process. Forstarters, analytics software (like the uberVuTool that my company uses) can now pinpointwhich social networks drive the most clicks and traffic, bearing in mind what type of contentyou’re sending (text, images or video) and who your intended audience is. Applications canauto schedule messages to be delivered at optimal time of day and report back not just on howmany people viewed but on the relative clout and influence of those viewers.

但是这种情况也正在迅速改变。很多新工具正在涌现，它们给社交媒体营销流程带来的精确性，就犹如上一代衡量工具之于网络销售流程。首先，有一些分析工具已经能够指出哪家社交媒体最能吸引流量和点击率(比如我们公司使用的uberVuTool)，并且会记住你正在发送哪类内容(文字、图片还是视频)，以及你的目标群体是谁。这些应用可以自动规划消息的发送时间，使它们在一天中最佳的时间发送出去。同时它们不仅可以报告有多少人阅读了你发送的内容，还可以反馈这些读者的相对影响力。

Combine these tools with Google Analytics and social customer relationship managementsoftware like Nimble (for logging customer interactions over social media) and it’s possible todirectly track how all of these efforts translate to visits to company websites and, in turn, leadsfor salespeople and even purchases via ecommerce channels. Finally, we’re reaching a pointwhere specific Tweets and posts can be linked directly to sales and assigned a real monetaryvalue, not just an aspirational one.

将这些工具与GoogleAnalytics和Nimble等社交客户关系管理软件(它可以记录客户在社交媒体的互动情况)结合在一起，企业就有可能追踪到，所有这些“微营销”的内容如何转变为企业网站的访问量，甚至可以追踪到有多少人联系销售人员，或者直接通过网购渠道购买。最后，我们就可以明白一条特定的微博可以产生多少实际的销量，带来多少真金白银，而不是想当然地猜测。

Social networks will dive deeper into ecommerce

社交网络将与商业联系得更紧密

In November, Snapchat announced the launch of Snapcash, becoming among the first majorsocial networks in North America to allow users to transfer money to one another inmessages. The service uses debit card information and appears to be, at least for the moment,free of charge. Once information is stored, it doesn’t have to be entered again – funds aretransferred from one bank account to another with a few taps and swipes.

今年11月，Snapchat公司推出了一款叫做Snapcash的产品，由此成为北美第一家允许用户通过消息向其他用户转账的主流社交网络。该服务使用的是借记卡信息，而且至少目前为止还是免费的。一旦它存储了你的信息，你就无需再次输入，只需要在手机上点点划划，就可以把钱轻松地从一个账户转到另一个账户。

Expect other social networks to soon follow suit, as part of a larger race into mobile payments.In fact, hacks released in October show a hidden payment feature already buried deep insideFacebook’s popular Messenger app. If activated by the company, it could allow the app’s 500million users to send money to each other.

随着移动支付大战的升级，其他社交网络可能很快也会如法炮制。事实上，今年10月的黑客事件显示，Facebook已经悄悄地在其备受欢迎的Messenger应用程序上嵌入了一个隐藏的支付功能。如果该公司将其激活，该应用的5亿用户就能互相转账了。

Peer-to-peer payments, however, are likely just the start. It’s not much of an intuitive leap tosee how this functionality could be opened up for payments to merchants, as well. This, in turn,paves the way for social networks to dive into the world of ecommerce. Retailers would be ableto send out offers for specific products in the form of Tweets or Facebook posts, for example,then consumers could buy with a tap or two. In fact, we’re already seeing exactly thisconvergence of social media and ecommerce in the “buy” buttons currently being beta-testedon Facebook and Twitter streams.

不过，这种点对点支付还只是一个开始。预测这种功能即将向商家付款开放，并不需要很大的直觉跳跃。这反过来将为社交媒体潜入电子商务世界铺平道路。打个比方，零售商可以以推文或微博的方式发送特定产品的信息，而消费者只需在手机上点一两下就完成了整个网购流程。实际上这种社交媒体与电商的“合体”已经发生了——目前Facebook和Twitter已经开始对“购买”键进行beta测试。

And there’s one other twist to this story. For merchants, receivinglow-cost or no-costpayments via social media is much more attractive than getting paid with credit cards, whichgenerally skim a 2-4% interchange fee off the top of every transaction. As social networksbecome associated more and more with financial transactions, we may well see Facebook andother platforms branch out to offer a cheaper, easier-to-use alternative to the traditionalcredit card system in the years ahead.

另外，对于商家来说，通过社交媒体接受低成本甚至零成本的转账，比接受信用卡支付更有诱惑力，因为信用卡支付每笔都要收取2%至4%的手续费。随着社交网络开始参与越来越多的金融交易，用不了几年，Facebook和其他社交平台有可能会推出比传统的信用卡体系更廉价易用的交易系统。

Customer service: Social media and phones work in tandem

客户服务：社交媒体与手机齐上阵

Airlines, Internet, cable providers and many other industries have reported significant benefitsfrom handling customer service on social media. Consumer satisfaction goes up because theexperience is more personalized and responses are often much faster than communications viatraditional channels like 1-800 numbers or email. Because conversations are generally public,clients with legitimate gripes have a better shot at equitable treatment and companies thathandle problems well get instant recognition on social media.

航空、互联网、有线电视以及许多其他行业都表示，把客户服务搬上社交媒体后，给他们带来了显著的效益。消费者的满意度之所以会增加，是由于社交媒体的客服体验更加人性化，同时也比“800服务电话”或通过电子邮件联系更加方便快捷。由于对话基本上都是公开的，因此有合理的理由发牢骚的顾客往往会获得更好的待遇，同时企业如果处理得当，也会很快在社交网络上得到认可。

But those same benefits can be liabilities. Lots of customer information is too sensitive todiscuss openly on social media. Complex problems can be hard to resolve in a series of 140-character Tweets. And, of course, not every company is eager to have its dirty laundry aired tothe world. New offerings, however, are bringing together the best elements of social customerservice and phone service, while reducing potential blowback.

但这些好处也可能成为负担。很多客户信息非常敏感，不能在社交媒体上公开讨论。另外有些问题比较复杂，很难在140个单词的微博里完全解决。当然，也不是每家公司都想把不体面的事情公诸于世。不过，一些新的产品正在整合电话服务和社交媒体服务的长处，同时还能减少潜在的负面影响。

One new option you can expect to see in the year ahead is the riseof personalized Tweet-to-call links. Say a customer reaches out via Twitter with a tricky problem. This technology enablesa company to Tweet back with a custom link that works only for that particular customer.Clicking on the link leads to a special phone number that connects directly with a service rep,who can handle the issue. Once the conversation has ended, the phone number isdeactivated.

明年有可能出现的一个新功能，就是所谓的“推文回电”链接。比如一个顾客通过Twitter反映了一个棘手的问题，一家公司就可以发送一条单独的链接。点开该链接，用户会得到一个单独的电话号码，可以直接联系到能够解决问题的某一位服务代表。一旦通话结束，该号码就会失效。

In this way, customers get the quick response times of social media coupled with the privacyand versatility of traditional phone service. And companies can offer discrete, on-demandphone service for those special problems that can’t be handled effectively via low-cost socialchannels.

通过这种办法，用户既能享受社交媒体带来的快捷的响应时间，又能享受到传统电话服务的隐私与全面性。另外企业可以继续提供独立的电话服务，以解决那些通过低成本的社交渠道无法有效解决的特定问题。

The biggest social media innovations will come through the back door

最大的社交媒体创新或从“后门”而来

The cloud has changed the way software and technology – includingsocial media – enterscompanies. In the past, IT directors called the shots. Now, however, employees in alldepartments are actively seeking out the apps and services that let them do their jobs best.Freemium pricing, which allows access to basic versions of software at no cost, makes it easy totest-drive new products. And these cloud-based tools tend to be intuitive and easy to use,just like Facebook and other consumer-oriented apps (a trend known as the “consumerizationof IT”).

云计算改变了软件和技术(包括社交媒体)进入企业的方式。过去一切都是IT总监说了算，但是现在，所有部门的员工都在积极寻找能让他们的工作做得更好的应用和服务。很多应用使用的免费增值模式使用户可以免费使用一些应用或服务的基本版，也使用户能更容易地试用新产品。这些云工具一般更加直观也更易用，就像Facebook和其他消费型应用一样(这种趋势又被叫做IT的“消费化”)。

All of this means that, while it’s near impossible to predict exactly which apps will take off inthe year ahead, the next great social media innovation may already be percolating through theranks of your company. Just as it was frontline employees who spurred the adoption of nowubiquitous time- and money-saving social tools like Yammer (for internal social networking),Dropbox (for file sharing) and Google Hangouts (for conference calling), so will the next, bestsocial media tools rise from the bottom up within companies.

所有这些趋势意味着，虽然很难预测明年哪些应用会真正大红大紫，但是下一波重大的社交媒体创新，可能已经在你的公司里悄然酝酿。正如现在已经非常普及的效率社交应用Yammer(用于内部社交)、Dropbox(用于文件分享)和谷歌的Hangouts(用于电话会议)等应用首先在一线员工中流行起来一样，下一波更好的社交媒体工具也会从企业的底层先火起来。

Want a peek into the social media future at your business? Ask to borrow the laptop or phoneof the newbie straight out of college (or, better yet, the 19-year-old intern) and see which appsshe’s using.

想看看你的公司以后会用哪种社交媒体吗?不妨找一个刚进公司的新人(有19岁左右的实习生更好)，把她的笔记本电脑或手机借来，看看她正在使用哪些应用。(财富中文网)