????杜克大學(xué)最近發(fā)表的一份關(guān)于社交媒體的研究令許多企業(yè)管理者撓頭。該報告顯示，許多企業(yè)的社交媒體支出約占企業(yè)營銷預(yù)算的9%，預(yù)計未來五年內(nèi)，這個比例將激增到25%。但半數(shù)受訪的企業(yè)營銷人員表示，他們根本無法證實社交媒體對他們的企業(yè)究竟產(chǎn)生了哪些影響。

????很多批評人士認為，企業(yè)一窩蜂地在社交媒體上燒錢不過是在填一個無底洞。不過我認為，這些矛盾的數(shù)字卻說明了另一個問題：社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)正在以飛快的速度發(fā)展，同時企業(yè)也正不遺余力地跟上。雖然企業(yè)正在通過社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)接觸更多受眾，也正在看到日益增加的好處，但持續(xù)變遷的社交媒體圖景使得獲得持續(xù)的成果，以及衡量這些成果，成為一個巨大的挑戰(zhàn)。

????2015年，社交媒體變革的步伐注定會進一步加快，但對于企業(yè)來說，現(xiàn)在與以往存在一個重大差異：主流社交媒體為了生錢，正在想方設(shè)法使企業(yè)能更輕松、同時更富有成效地與消費者進行互動。同時，隨著各種工具的不斷涌現(xiàn)，追蹤社交媒體支出的成效，甚至衡量每一條微博的收益，也會變得更加簡單。

????簡言之，2015年是企業(yè)利用社交媒體的成效更容易顯現(xiàn)，也更不容易被忽視的一年?，F(xiàn)在就讓我們透過“水晶球”，看看明年的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)會給企業(yè)帶來什么。

????在Facebook上搞營銷將花費企業(yè)更多的錢

????你們公司的Facebook主頁已經(jīng)有了幾千個粉絲，所以這意味著每次你更新內(nèi)容的時候，都會有幾千人看到，對不對？錯！在Facebook專用算法的限制下，每條營銷內(nèi)容大概只會接觸到一個品牌16%的粉絲。不過奧美公關(guān)公司的研究人員今年年初發(fā)表的一份報告顯示，目前這個數(shù)字已經(jīng)下降到6%左右，可能還會進一步下跌。該報告的作者馬修?曼森認為：“Facebook等于是說，可能有一天，營銷內(nèi)容的‘自然觸及人數(shù)’可能達到零?！?/p>

????那為什么會發(fā)生這種情況？首先，用戶的消息流中，涌入的內(nèi)容只會越來越多，也就意味著每條營銷內(nèi)容被看到的概率也會越來越低。與此同時，F(xiàn)acebook還在鼓勵企業(yè)使用它的付費社交廣告，它所觸及到的用戶要比企業(yè)發(fā)布的普通內(nèi)容多得多。這些所謂的“原生廣告”就像普通的Facebook消息一樣，會直接顯示在用戶的消息流中，而不是像傳統(tǒng)的橫幅廣告一樣顯示在網(wǎng)頁邊緣。

????這對2015年的企業(yè)意味著什么？這意味著，要想在Facebook上做好“微營銷”，企業(yè)可能要在付費社交廣告上砸雙份的錢。與此同時，企業(yè)還會把雞蛋往其它的籃子里放幾個，比如Twitter、Instagram甚至是中國的微信等等。這種廣撒網(wǎng)的方法雖然對Facebook的未來發(fā)展不利，但對于企業(yè)來說不失為觸及不同人口群體的好辦法。

????如果“微營銷”真能促進銷量，我們還會看到更多的工具

????在Twitter或Facebook上有幾千個數(shù)絲，或者在Instagram上收集幾萬個“贊”來秀一下虛榮心，的確不是很難的事。但它們?nèi)绾无D(zhuǎn)變成銷量和收入？一直到現(xiàn)在為止，這個問題很大程度上都被規(guī)避掉了，企業(yè)在社交媒體上砸了那么多錢，只是基于“曝光度”和“注意力份額”等空泛的術(shù)語。

????但是這種情況也正在迅速改變。很多新工具正在涌現(xiàn)，它們給社交媒體營銷流程帶來的精確性，就猶如上一代衡量工具之于網(wǎng)絡(luò)銷售流程。首先，有一些分析工具已經(jīng)能夠指出哪家社交媒體最能吸引流量和點擊率（比如我們公司使用的uberVuTool），并且會記住你正在發(fā)送哪類內(nèi)容（文字、圖片還是視頻），以及你的目標(biāo)群體是誰。這些應(yīng)用可以自動規(guī)劃消息的發(fā)送時間，使它們在一天中最佳的時間發(fā)送出去。同時它們不僅可以報告有多少人閱讀了你發(fā)送的內(nèi)容，還可以反饋這些讀者的相對影響力。

????將這些工具與GoogleAnalytics和Nimble等社交客戶關(guān)系管理軟件（它可以記錄客戶在社交媒體的互動情況）結(jié)合在一起，企業(yè)就有可能追蹤到，所有這些“微營銷”的內(nèi)容如何轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)槠髽I(yè)網(wǎng)站的訪問量，甚至可以追蹤到有多少人聯(lián)系銷售人員，或者直接通過網(wǎng)購渠道購買。最后，我們就可以明白一條特定的微博可以產(chǎn)生多少實際的銷量，帶來多少真金白銀，而不是想當(dāng)然地猜測。

????社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)將與商業(yè)聯(lián)系得更緊密

????今年11月，Snapchat公司推出了一款叫做Snapcash的產(chǎn)品，由此成為北美第一家允許用戶通過消息向其他用戶轉(zhuǎn)賬的主流社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)。該服務(wù)使用的是借記卡信息，而且至少目前為止還是免費的。一旦它存儲了你的信息，你就無需再次輸入，只需要在手機上點點劃劃，就可以把錢輕松地從一個賬戶轉(zhuǎn)到另一個賬戶。

????隨著移動支付大戰(zhàn)的升級，其他社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)可能很快也會如法炮制。事實上，今年10月的黑客事件顯示，F(xiàn)acebook已經(jīng)悄悄地在其備受歡迎的Messenger應(yīng)用程序上嵌入了一個隱藏的支付功能。如果該公司將其激活，該應(yīng)用的5億用戶就能互相轉(zhuǎn)賬了。

????不過，這種點對點支付還只是一個開始。預(yù)測這種功能即將向商家付款開放，并不需要很大的直覺跳躍。這反過來將為社交媒體潛入電子商務(wù)世界鋪平道路。打個比方，零售商可以以推文或微博的方式發(fā)送特定產(chǎn)品的信息，而消費者只需在手機上點一兩下就完成了整個網(wǎng)購流程。實際上這種社交媒體與電商的“合體”已經(jīng)發(fā)生了——目前Facebook和Twitter已經(jīng)開始對“購買”鍵進行beta測試。

????另外，對于商家來說，通過社交媒體接受低成本甚至零成本的轉(zhuǎn)賬，比接受信用卡支付更有誘惑力，因為信用卡支付每筆都要收取2%至4%的手續(xù)費。隨著社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)開始參與越來越多的金融交易，用不了幾年，F(xiàn)acebook和其他社交平臺有可能會推出比傳統(tǒng)的信用卡體系更廉價易用的交易系統(tǒng)。

????Duke University recently published a study on social media that left many managers scratching their heads. Social media spending at companies, the report showed, currently represents 9% of marketing budgets, and that’s forecast to rise to nearly 25% within five years. But half of marketers interviewed said they couldn’t show what impact social media had on their business – at all.

????Critics were quick to call the surge in social media spending a case of throwing good money after 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 keep up. Businesses are reaching larger audiences and seeing increasing benefits, but the shifting social media landscape makes getting consistent results – and measuring them – an enormous challenge.

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

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

????Staying relevant on Facebook will cost companies more

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

????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 larger percentage of fans than organic posts. These so-called “native ads” look just like normal Facebook posts and show up directly in users’ news streams, not along the side of the page like traditional banner ads.

????What does this mean for businesses in 2015? Staying relevant on Facebook FB 1.90% will require doubling down on paid social ad spending. At the same time, we’ll also see companies diversify their social media efforts to include other social channels, including Twitter TWTR 1.25% , 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 reach different demographics flocking to other networks.

????Finally, more tools to see if Tweets actually produce sales

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

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

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

????Social networks will dive deeper into ecommerce

????In November, Snapchat announced the launch of Snapcash, becoming among the first major social networks in North America to allow users to transfer money to one another in messages. 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 are transferred from one bank account to another with a few taps and swipes.

????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 inside Facebook’s popular Messenger app. If activated by the company, it could allow the app’s 500 million users to send money to each other.

????Peer-to-peer payments, however, are likely just the start. It’s not much of an intuitive leap to see 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 able to 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 this convergence of social media and ecommerce in the “buy” buttons currently being beta-tested on Facebook and Twitter streams.

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