Those of us who fervently follow tech and social media news have been pondering what’s next for quite some time. The evolution of the web has looked something like this (warning: this is a simplified view – each one of those developments merits a book of its own – or at least a whitepaper):

At First There Was…

Web 1.0 – one-directional, or asynchronous, web – was characterized by the following flow of information: from the web page, created by individual or business to the reader, where the reader was the passive consumer of information. Like with TV, companies could make claims on their sites, which consumers consumed as-is. As a natural development, static pages grew into more functional pages, with the addition of e-commerce. And thus, customer empowerment built, giving people the ability to shop and compare prices across many channels (offline and offline) quickly, efficiently. Still within the "Web 1.0" world, the early harbingers of today’s social networks emerged in the forms of web forums and discussion groups (well, the very first iteration were the BBS’s of 1970s – 1990s, but that’s beyond the scope of this article). These forums allowed for a many-to-many conversation, while email, chatrooms and early IMs (ICQ, anyone?) allowed for a one-to-one or a one-to-many communication.

Then We Got Social…

The many-to-many conversation truly exploded with the advent of Web 2.0 – the social web. It gave rise to multi-directional communication between individuals and businesses. Wide availability and transparency of content has shifted a larger burden of openness onto companies and brands. Consumer review sites have empowered consumers to share their opinions with others looking for this information. Not only have products come under scrutiny, but corporate actions and their officers, as beacons of their respective companies’ reputations, have been considered under a microscope. The social web has given birth to and empowered the social customer (be on the lookout for our whitepaper on the subject), where opinions of your own social network far outweigh anything else. Publishing tools have democratized content, making everyone a publisher, while social sharing tools have enabled the most meritorious content to propagate and be discussed.

Where We Are Now…

Realtime web has connected us to each other in an unprecedented way, breaking down the barriers of time and geographical distances. With Twitter, you can now ask a question, and receive an answer from people you know, as well as people you don’t know, exactly when you need it. Socially enabled brands have started to participate in realtime conversations too. Location-based services now enable us to practice "planned serendipity" when extending our online sociality to carbon-based contact. News is breaking faster and coming from the source, wherever the source is. Businesses have the mind-boggling task of making sense of all this information, and an even bigger task of making sense of it. And of course, that’s where platforms like Attensity360 come in handy.

Implication for businesses: The explosion of social (whether it’s realtime or not) information has placed a tremendous strain on companies trying to keep up, listen, engage and measure. The importance of listening (otherwise known as monitoring), and using platforms to do so, has come front and center in the minds of large enterprises and smaller businesses alike. As we all know, listening is only half the battle. Being able to act on the information, engage when necessary, build relationships, and be overall helpful, is the more nuanced of the two steps. Not only does engagement ask for the right processes, cultural mindset and (only then!) tools, but it also heavily relies on the human factor and those wonderful interpersonal skills we have been honing throughout our careers. The reason I bring up tools is because when you come face to face with a heavy volume of social media data, you need a smart engine (almost artificial intelligence) to help you prioritize and route within your enterprise.

Mobile has already staked its claim as a force to be reckoned with. Companies realize that due to the fragmentation of the web, driving people to your site to capture "eyeballs" for advertising dollars is no longer a viable strategy. If your goal is customer adoption, you need to work with this new breed of social customer on her terms. Is it valuable to her? Is it relevant? Are you solving her pain points? Is there room in her day to interact with your product? To get a "yes" to at least one of the above questions, you need to be where she is. Let’s face it: she is not going to your site, unless you are Facebook. But if your functionality can be useful to her, you need to embed yourself within other sites, other apps, and be available on whatever device she favors. If she splits her time between her computer and smartphone, you better be available on both! A mobile strategy is no longer a nice-to-have, but rather a must-have. The best apps, in my opinion, are the ones that leverage built-in capabilities, such as GPS, voice, SMS, etc.

What’s Next?

Realtime and mobile are where we are right now, and everyone knows that (well, at least they should). But there’s also a more subtle movement creeping in, which is going to be just as important. The intention web, as coined by Jeremiah Owyang, and reiterated by Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb , is a look into the future. Instead of people sharing what they are doing and thinking in realtime, it’s a peek into what they plan to do in the future. As Jeremiah points out, there are differences in explicit and implicit intent, and we are also closer to being able to mine the expressed (explicit) intent. Implicit intent would have to require in-depth mining of data across many channels (social and non-social), to recognize patterns and predict when something will happen, based on an array of factors, such as: past actions, changes in patterns, as well as current sentiment / mood, changes in mood, velocity of changes in patterns and mood, among other factors (at least that’s how I envision it). I think Social CRM is an important first step to this, as it ties together and retains data about each person from various sources. I agree with Jeremiah that we are a ways off form unleashing full predictive power of implicit data, and that we are much closer to mining expressed intention data.

Implication for business: How can you listen for intent? Aside from the obvious choices of events on Plancast and Facebook, you should also be mining other realtime platforms (such as Twitter) for combinations of "Looking for (xyz)", "anyone know (xyz)?", "planning to (abc)", "going to / gonna (abc)", etc. You can even follow the #plan hashtag, which is automatically attached when you synch a Plancast event to Facebook. What does this mean to businesses? Well, you have an opportunity to help customers who may be looking for a solution like yours at the time of need. You also have an opportunity to give each potential customer a personalized experience. However, just like with realtime monitoring, prospects who state their intent and interest, don’t do it so that they can be marketed to or talked at. You need to exercise the same approach to engagement as you always have: being human, helpful, transparent and non-promotional. Look to establish a relationship first, before you get permission to talk about your solution. And trust me, if the prospect likes the way the conversation progresses, she will proactively dig through your content and profile links to learn more about you.

Republished from original article.

Photo credits bull3t and rosengrant