Many people use Social Media to market their business on the Internet. In 2010, most companies used Facebook and Twitter as a medium to promote their business via providing information about their companies or giving links which redirected to their website. In 2011 on the other hand, more companies have tried to be familiar with a overall concept of Social Media Marketing so that they can use better ways to promote their business. Some Social Media Trends that you might see this year are as follows :

1) Interaction - Earlier, businesses used social media only as a way to know what people were talking about. But now it seems, more and more businesses are opening up to the thought of interacting with their customers personally. Companies are now looking forward to people’s needs and feedbacks. Managing healthy crowd-sourcing campaigns will build a company’s social confidence and a tougher digital skin.

2) Commercialization of the Web - Many websites are now starting to commercialize their services. Not only because they have been popular but also because they are looking forward to revenue generation.  Balance is the key as an over-customized, over-featured social presence risks alienating the consumer with too many choices, and resembling what the brand began with a corporate website.

3) Location apps to target new industries - Geo-location applications will be targeting many new industries this year. Socially checking in to a favorite store and receiving an immediate discount via text or some other messaging technology is fun but location technology will be used to track and analyze crowd behaviour, particularly useful to governments and emergency response units.

4) Connections will be harder to earn - Users now have a lot of options and are tend to become more choosy. Making social connections will be harder to earn now. With users relying on social search results to gain instant insight on a product or issue, there’s less reason to permanently socially connect with brands. With all this consumers will surely benefit as many companies would offer special deals and discounts to their followers.