IBM: Four Major Trends Shaping Social Business in 2013 and Beyond

At the IBM Connect 2013 conference in Orlando, Fla., Big Blue delved into the issue of what trends will affect social business in the next year and beyond. To that end, a panel of three participants discussed the trends they believe will lead to further adoption of social business. The panelists were Beverly Macy, CEO of Gravity Summit and Huffington Post columnist; Mark Fidelman, CEO of Evolve and Forbes.com columnist; and Sandy Carter, vice president of social business sales and evangelism at IBM. Carter said the first major trend shaping social business is that it is moving beyond marketing. Marketing became one of the first pieces of a business to go social, and now more segments are adopting social principles, she said. For instance, one company IBM supports is using social business software in its patent process, and another in its regulatory compliance department. However, Macy argued that while some companies are ready to take social business beyond their marketing departments, several have not tapped social media at all yet. "Traditional marketing works and it works well in some areas," she said. "Social amplifies the effect of that traditional marketing." This slide show examines some of the trends the panel members see as shaping social business.