Info-Currents June Issue: Measuring Pins and Photos, Facebook Hashtags, Soft Science Skills

Emerging trend: Systems that analyze visual social media, such as Curalate, add new dimensions to measuring online behavior. 

Implication: Photos generate significant interaction in social media. The ability to capture words and images will increase the value of online content and highlight those influencers who speak through images.

Action: Not everybody wants to write. When drafting your content marketing strategy, balance verbiage with visual images. Allow your followers to be able to clip and share those images on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and elsewhere.

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Emerging trend:  Facebook will mirror Twitter’s power in trending topics by adopting hashtags.

Implication: Facebook will become more useful to those who want to generate awareness on brands and issues. The hashtag streams will expand closed-in friend networks and increase Facebook pages’ search visibility.

Action: Identify words people are most likely to use in reference to your topic. Use these as hashtags consistently across all of your social media platforms.

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Emerging trend: As hard technologies (i.e., machine-based) become automated, soft technologies (e.g., social technology, behavioral sciences) gain value as they still rely on human interpretation and creativity.  

           

Implication: Qualitative analysis skills, humanities education, and the ability to process emotion will be critical to business success.

Action: Supplement hard science curriculum with social sciences and humanities. Watch for executives who can fuse analytical thinking with emotional intelligence and a sharp eye for observations.

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