The Future of The Future of Social Media

If you're anything like me, you're tired of everyone calling themselves social media experts.  There are swarms of people whom are offering quick and fast rules to live by in social media, but in the end, what does it all mean?

And how has social media changed things.

Well, before you roll your eyes at my question, just think about how social media has changed the nature in which brands can communicate with consumers.  We all know the saying "the customer is in control".  But what about the nature of the message, not only is the customer in control, but the messages are simpler.  

Yes, I said it, simple. According to Alex Iskod, CEO of GetGlue, "Complexity doesn’t really work in social media. People are trying to create this social engagement and turn it into this multi-tiered, multilevel challenge to get people to do X,Y,Z. The simplest things on GetGlue and Twitter and Facebook are spreading some kind of viral content through the existing social circuit. The best videos on YouTube go viral because people like them," (Fast Company, 2012)

And as we sit at a crossroads between content creation and content curation, forces which are fueling social media engagement, I depart with this prediction about the future of social media: content will become interestingly more simple, and as people respond more favorably and share more on the social web, the rigid idea of "brand' will be tossed out the window, as it becomes more fluid.  When we reach this point, then and only then can we talk about the maturity of social media as a platform.