Let’s play the word association game here. Tell me what comes to your mind when I say the word December. Of course, Christmas, shopping, holidays….Predictions!! Yup, predictions that’s the one this blog post will be all about. What will the year 2009 hold for us?

I have put down my 10 predictions. Five of these are on a more socio-economic level at large. Most of these changes that I am predicting will be huge leap jumps in their own way and will be possible only because of extensive use and acceptability of social media.

1. Thought Leadership as a Strategy:

These days, it is not uncommon to see people seek value out of everything. And by value, I am not restricting it to price equation alone. Value could be delivered in the form of information, education, better quality or even better service. One of the key principles of social media is to provide value to its consumer. For companies and in turn their brands to survive, they will have to provide value at all levels to their consumers. Social Media will prompt companies to adopt thought leadership as a value in their manifesto in their area of core competence.

I predict that in 2009 most companies will use thought leadership as a strategy in their respective categories by educating consumers to win potential consumers and retain existing ones.

2. Online activism:

World over, we are witnessing increase in online activism from citizens. People are reaching out to each other across the country or world either for peace rallies or prayers or candle light vigils or to form groups to decide on action steps. Social media is providing a platform to like-minded people to connect with each other and come forward to participate in events. It is being used to educate citizens to become more alert and aware about their surroundings.

I predict that in 2009 there will be a lot more of government and citizen collaboration to fight not just terrorism but also for better governance. And the mode of collaboration and reaching out will be through social media.

3. Traditional media will rediscover itself:

There is a lot of talk on how traditional media will lose its sheen in the coming years. I believe it will continue to do so if it keeps following social media principles without reinventing itself. Take the case of citizen journalism. A couple of TV channels have started running segments where the citizens report in news to the people at large. As a subscriber I am not paying TV channels money to hear news from the common man. I am expecting a thorough analysis done by the reporters and journalists on the events before it being presented to me. I want an unbiased, complete perspective which an untrained citizen cannot provide. For citizen based reports, I always have social media platforms to go to.

I predict that in 2009 channels adopting practices like these will die. Traditional media is still very important in our lives and it has to discover and operate from its own strengths rather than borrow principles of social media.

4. Rise in Entrepreneurship:

The coming year will see a surge in employees turning entrepreneurs. Two of the key barriers for any entrepreneur are sourcing and marketing. They do not know how to reach out to their potential customers or their relevant suppliers and secondly do not have big marketing budgets to do so. With social media coming into play, both the barriers will be tackled for good. Armed with a profile in social networking sites like Facebook and Linked in, an entrepreneur can reach out to his potential customers and vendors at practically no cost. I have several of my friends who have leveraged SNS to their advantage. One is running a store called Attic and the other is promoting himself as a photographer. Several others have networked themselves on Linked In and reached out to their potential clients. This is no to say that they do not need a great idea and passion to implement the same.

I predict that in 2009, several people will turn to entrepreneurship as social media will facilitate them in their process.

5. We will turn into listeners:

Let’s admit it, most of us if giving a choice would rather speak than listen. It’s a sort of conditioning that as happened to us over the years as the media we used facilitated only one way communication. With social media increasing its presence, we will have to get used to receiving feedback. Our consumers, investors, employees will have the opportunity to talk to us directly and we will have to listen. If we want to continuously seek and retain their attention, we will have to start listening and accepting feedback.

I predict that in 2009, we as individuals and corporate will definitely change and start listening to each other more often.

Click here to read the remaining five predictions for the year 2009.