2010 has been one revolutionary year. We saw the rise of tablet computers, blu-ray, robotics, and so on. But, what we didn't notice is that there have been noticeable changes in the trends of the World Wide Web as well. Till last year, Google was supposed to be the leader but today things have changed. It seems like social media websites like Facebook and Twitter have already declared war on Google and for sure there has been a tremendous change in the mindsets of online marketers as well. Think of it – there was a time when marketers completely concentrated on Google to promote their online businesses but now social media has become the number one preference.
Honestly speaking, that is actually a good thing because through social media people can now find potential customers easily. There are numerous other advantages of social media as well and numerous changes that have occurred in 2010 which have made us think that social media websites are the next big thing. Here are some of those changes which have changed the way online business worked: Introduction of business apps and features:Right from the start of 2010 we heard news pertaining to twitter, Facebook, and the others and their plans of making their platforms much more alluring for businesses. And, yes they all actually did it. Facebook introduced features like Q&A and business pages, Twitter announced a completely new user friendly layout and LinkedIn had its special feedback feature. All of them were basically targeted towards businesses and for their ease. Communication made easier:Why do you think all of these social media websites introduced features which made communication much easier than ever before? For instance, Facebook introduced the feature of joint strings. If 3 of your friends posted the same link you will get it as a thread instead of getting them separately. This way, not only your time is saved but all of your friends with the same interest on that particular topic can communicate about it. This is especially advantageous for businesses as they can get to know how exactly people feel about their brands. Communicate with real people:Possibly the biggest advantage of the revolution of social media is that businesses can really get to know who their customers are. Twitter introduced a feature some weeks back of having mini profiles. When you roll your mouse over to the person's name, a short profile of the person will appear. This way, if you want to find potential customers you will know who exactly are you following or connecting with. Previously, this was not possible because Twitter showed you limited profiles. Crowdsourcing is in!Probably the major feature which was integrated by almost all social media websites is of Crowdsourcing. What we mean by Crowdsourcing is that most of the social media websites now have the feature of having open Q&A sessions in which numerous people can contribute and so on.These were some major changes in social media which made the social media websites more lucrative for the businesses.