Rather than post up my predictions for 2012, this year I thought I’d highlight 5 of the best “social media predictions for 2012″ posts and do a little critique of them. Sound fun? Read on MacDuff…

Marc Andressen on Cnet

This is my favourite social media “Prediction” post for 2012, Marc Andressen is clearly on a smart-phone high, but his comments about “category killers” i.e. e-commerce solutions that, due to the rise in numbers of potential customers (fuelled by smart phone uptake) have been able to carve huge gouges out of vertical industries that were previously out of bounds for disruptive start-ups, are genius.

Avi Savar in Forbes

This is a thoughtful piece from Avi Savar, CEO of marketing agency, BigFuel, who spoke at my recent social media marketing event in New York, that highlights the gamification trend that I see becoming omnipresent in social media in 2012/13. He also offers an honest (if slightly terrifying) perspective on the continued rise of Facebook and the drive for perfect personalisation. Avi has also stirred up criticism from a certain Mr Redpants, which has to be the hallmark of a good post!

Kevin Green on BostInno

I just happened upon this little gem of a post, and while I disagree about gamification overload (99% of businesses have yet to hear the word – and many of those that have are getting impressive returns from implementing it) – I completely agree that 2012 must be the year of “social business” delivery, rather than theory and discussion. I too foresee the end of the “social media guru”. It’s the day-to-day practitioners who have the knowledge today. After 3-4 years of dubious service, Guru’s need to truss up their loin-cloths and return to their caves.

David Armano in the Harvard Business Review

David Armano’s list is here for two reasons: firstly, we both wrongly predicted that Facebook Places would put Foursquare out of business in 2011 (well done Foursquare, we still love you) and, secondly, he includes Social TV in his list. We often forget that TV remains the most powerful medium in the world. Now just imagine how powerful it will be when we integrate it with the word-of-mouth and recommendation-engine that is social media. It’s the next gold rush. You heard it here first my friend! (Well, second).

Angela Hausman on Interact Marketing

I like this post because of two lines, firstly “customer service can no longer be relegated to a department” . To me the rise of social CRM and online customer engagement mean that customer service is marketing, it is also PR, product research, strategy research and more. For me the really big question for 2012 is: should you let your Marketing Team anywhere near social media? The second line I like is the 5th point made: “Increased blurring between customers and employees”. The lines between staff, customers, suppliers and even competitors have definitely blurred through social media. We’re all just people on Facebook and Twitter – and people talk. Businesses need to adapt to this change.

Well, those are my 5-of-the-best. I also made a presentation last week on the “Future of Social Media” to The Telegraph in London. I won’t go into the detail of that here, but I set out my views in this short interview I did with Mo Krochmal in New York in October (after the part about the differences between events in NYC, San Francisco and London). I think it’s the most succinct definition I’ve produced yet – so I’m pleased Mo was on hand with his camera! See what you think.

I’d welcome your feedback on any of the predictions here. What’s missing? Is there anything you think is absolute hogwash? Who should have their Social Media Expert status suspended?

Social Commerce is a fast-emerging theme for anyone interested in social media, marketing and retail, especially. There have been some great blog posts about it in the past year – and in the past few months several fascinating social commerce reports have been released. Here are our picks of the bunch:

Social Commerce Trends 2011

This excellent report from Bazaarvoice is packed with case studies, facts, quotes and figures, and it’s well worth taking an hour out and reading through it. The wealth of case studies and interesting bytes of information is truly impressive – e.g. this from Argos’ David Tarbuck on the store’s use of online reviews: “We now have 900,000 reviews, and each week over a million customers read reviews” and this one “Restaurant reservations site OpenTable added the “like” button for its restaurants and sees a 25% increase in reservations and a 200% increase in member registrations at OpenTable.com”.

JWT Social Commerce Report

The JWT Social Commerce report is also packed with valuable information. Ever wondered about the true value of “recommendations”? 72% of us already feel it’s like Big Brother is watching us when we get personalised recommendations and 56% of us feel violated! The report is very readable with great visuals, but if you’re pushed for time, scoot through the presentation, as recently highlighted on the excellent We Are Social blog.

Havas Social Commerce Report

Our 3rd social commerce report is from Havas Media Social and Lightspeed Research. They concluded that “whilst the industry is hailing social commerce as ‘the next big thing’, it is yet to make its mark on the overall bottom line with the majority (89%) of people not having bought anything on Facebook, and 44% not yet interested in doing so.” It’s from a survey of 1007 UK social networkers, so this seems valid, but we think the fact that 55% of people saying that they would “Check in” to a location to receive a discount, is a more interesting stat. See our 13 Key Social Commerce Statistics taken from the report.

Amy Kean from Havas Media will be joining a panel on the Value of Social Commerce at Social Media Marketing London on 19th Sept and we’ll also be discussing this at Social Media Marketing New York on 12th Oct.

Back in 2009 a damning survey of Fortune 100 CEO’s reported that just two had Twitter accounts and (hold onto your lower jaw) only three had more than 10 connections on LinkedIn. It was a staggering read for anyone who thinks businesses need social media in the same way that newspapers need ethics.

I have, like most social media consultants, experienced this first hand. I winced with dismay a couple of years ago when, after I’d suggested that any senior exec who wasn’t using LinkedIn to network on behalf of his employer was not simply wasteful but was actually harming the business, the CEO confessed that he’d never heard of LinkedIn.

Perhaps things have changed in the last year. Social media has certainly matured as a business tool. Social CRM is now a keen buzzword for large enterprises (if only a buzzword, for most) and social business is a phrase that’s emerging to cover the wider implications of openness, crowd-sourcing, networking, advocacy and collaboration that social media enables within an organisational structure.

In my opening address at Social Media Marketing 2011 in San Francisco a month ago I suggested that “social business” was about the humanising of organisations. By this I meat that, through social media listening and engagement, organisations are effectively creating nerve systems that are capable of sensing reactions across the social web. By plugging these into internal communication systems and knowledge-sharing processes, then training staff to use them, organisations are able to channel valuable, real-time data to the right people to react to it. Assuming those people know what to do and have the means to respond, this should result in a more feeling, responsive and user-friendly entity. When organisations get good at this, they can also use this data to pre-empt problems, thus becoming a truly thinking being.

There’s a major flaw in this utopia though: it requires vision. Without the leadership of a visionary Chief Exec or MD this kind of cross-departmental project – which requires new thinking, new processes, new skills and new tools – simply cannot happen. There are good examples of visionary uses of enterprise social media – IBM’s adoption of enterprise social networks to leverage internal knowledge, Deloitte’s use social media for staff recruitment and retention on Holland, and plenty of social CRM case studies – but to map this across an organisation and find the budget to do it properly, CEOs and CxOs must be enlightened (and brave) enough to take social media seriously.

Two years on from the Fortune 100 report, I’ll bet lots of leading CEOs now have LinkedIn accounts and a few more will be using Twitter. How many of them seriously understand social media and have the vision to invest the time and money needed to unlock it’s full potential though, you can probably still count on one hand.

With this in mind, I’m hosting a half-day social media briefing for CEOs and CxOs in London on 20th September. Speakers include Ian McNairn (IBM), Neville Hobson (formerly of WCG), Chris Buckley (Headstream) and Loic Moisand (Synthesio). Tickets are limited to 30 max, so early booking is advised.