I don’t have a list of ten predictions. I don’t even have five. But I do have one and I feel rather strongly about it.

Okay, a great number of people are predicting that social media will be even bigger next year and businesses will continue to latch on and make use of the space. They’ve learned that it is an important strategy and that social media must become a huge part of their overall marketing and PR efforts.

Great.

However, I believe that many employees (state workers, for sure) will find themselves blocked from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and maybe even LinkedIn entirely next year.

I’ve written quite a bit about social media guidelines and even led the charge in developing them for my current company, which supports employee involvement.  We want people to get involved and become brand advocates. But that’s us.  That may not be the case where you work and you could soon find out the hard way.

For many companies there is nothing to gain but a loss of productivity for allowing this access and they’ve known it for a while.  Therefore, I maintain that many will soon pull the plug.

I know of a hotel that just made this change. Their employees can’t even access their personal Gmail or yahoo accounts. This edict was literally passed down from corporate just last week.

They won’t be checking personal email on their employers watch and they sure as heck won’t be chatting it up on Facebook.

Sure, you can still update your status on your BlackBerry or iPhone and not miss a beat.  But if your device was issued by your employer, you might want to think twice.

Agree with me or not, I think this is a trend that has legs. Just wait and see.