To listen and watch playback of the webinar, Social Media Outlook for 2011, click here. You can view the PowerPoint deck below.

You will take away:

• The numbers to know—how businesses are budgeting for social media and what they are spending
• How important Facebook is becoming to the online marketplace
• Why “liking” a brand is only the beginning of a consumer’s dialog with a company
• Which demographic groups are the heaviest users of social media and how to effectively reach them

About Debra Aho Williamson

Debra is eMarketer’s lead analyst focusing on social media marketing and the demographics of social media users. She produces eMarketer’s forecasts for social network advertising spending in the US and worldwide and has written more than two dozen reports delivering key insights covering how marketers, media and consumers are engaging with social media. A founding executive editor of pioneering internet business publication The Industry Standard, Debra is quoted for her analysis in the business press and invited to speak at major digital marketing internet events.

Sponsored by Demand Media.

eMarketer expects the number of US social gamers to grow to 68.7 million in 2012, from 53 million in 2010. That represents 29.5% growth over two years and, coincidentally, 29% of the Internet population playing social games by 2012.

What’s behind our user projections?

Our audience forecast assumes that the fundamentals of the social gaming industry will remain in place for at least the next two years. These fundamentals are a deep well of simple games that appeal to large audiences; social sharing features on Facebook and on third-party platforms that allow users to connect to Facebook; and non-real-time playing capabilities.

eMarketer’s user estimates are based on data from sources including Trendstream/Lightspeed Research, BlogHer/iVillage, Newzoo BV, Ipsos OTX MediaCT, ThinkEquity, TrustE, NPD Group and Inside Social Games. These companies looked at social gaming across all platforms, including Facebook and MySpace.

Our figures are generally more conservative than those of other research firms. Here’s why. We noticed there has been a recent drop in cumulative monthly active users among the top 15 games on Facebook, according to Inside Social Games, a resource for user data on social gaming, which releases usage data every month on a game-by-game basis.
This index showed month-to-month drops from September to December 2010, as well as a year-over-year decrease from December 2009 to December 2010.

Since most published estimates of the social gaming audience were based on surveys conducted before this trend emerged, we thought it would be prudent to issue a more guarded estimate than other researchers.
True, there was a rebound in monthly active users in January thanks to the recent launch of Zynga’s popular CityVille, but this spike was not enough to prevent a year-over-year decrease for January 2011 as well.

It’s worth explaining that this data is not a comprehensive measure of social gaming usage. For starters, Inside Social Games compiles worldwide monthly active users on a game-specific basis without regard to overlap among games.

Also, the index that showed a downward trend was limited to the top games on Facebook, which accounts for about three-fourths of social gaming traffic, according to eMarketer estimates. The next-largest social gaming venue, MySpace, showed a 6% increase in cumulative monthly active users from January 2010 to January 2011, according to Inside Social Games.

It’s also worth considering that the drops starting in September might have been precipitated by changes in Facebook’s notification policies. The social network started limiting game notifications to users who already played games. Previously, all users were notified of their Facebook friends’ social gaming activities, which helped the viral spread of the games.

With these caveats in mind, eMarketer’s conclusion is that the Inside Social Games data is not a surefire sign of waning interest, but it does put a damper on expectations. Accordingly, we’re forecasting growth–but at a slower rate than what we’ve seen over the past two years.

Look for my upcoming report, “Social Gaming: Marketers Make Their Moves.”

In 2010, mobile shopping activity began to have a noticeable influence on ecommerce sales. The momentum culminated in a coming out party during the holiday season. Consumers discovered that mobile phones helped them to stay within their budget and be more efficient in checking-off the items on their holiday shopping list.

According to a survey by SapientNitro, a marketing and technology services company, smartphone owners integrated their devices into their shopping routine by using them to find deals, research products, solicit opinions from friends and family on products of interest, share information about a shopping experience with friends on a social network and, of course, buy products.

“Portability is a game-changer in transforming the way that people shop,” said Chris Davey, worldwide head of commerce at SapientNitro. “Technology is causing some of the biggest shifts in human behavior that we’ve seen in years, and consumers are more informed and empowered than ever. This has a major impact not only on the way that consumers shop but also on the way that retailers need to market to consumers….”

More mobile shopping activity was reflected in the numbers reported by eBay, Google and ShopSavvy, among others.

While these statistics bode well for the future of mobile commerce, consumers still have concerns about using their device for shopping. The mobile shopping experience is somewhat awkward, and some consumers have concerns about credit card security when they order by smartphone.

Such worries are a reminder of similar objections people raised during the early days of ecommerce. However better engineered mobile devices and designed apps will improve the shopping experience. Also, as the uninitiated hear stories from friends and family about their accomplishments while mobile shopping, they will gain the courage to try it too.

Further, strong growth in new ownership of smartphones also bodes well. eMarketer expects the number of smartphone users to grow 22% in 2011, bringing the percentage of the population owning a smartphone to 23% this year compared with 19% in 2010.

The bottom line: Retailers who have invested money in building a mobile program but have not received a commensurate return will begin to see their efforts bear fruit in 2011. Retailers who have not invested are losing valuable time on the learning curve.

The theme of the Consumer Electronics Show was ‘The Year of the Tablet,’ and more than 80 were introduced at the show. In this cacophony of device debuts, what’s most important for marketers to know? What follows are four questions and answers that will help put tablets in perspective.

Question: Do any of the more than 80 tablets introduced at CES have a chance of coming close to the iPad’s success?

Answer: What’s happening with tablets is very similar to what happened in the smartphone market. In whatever the category—Apple has one device. And that one device is always being measured against many other devices in the same category. Samsung introduced the Galaxy Tab in the fourth quarter of 2010 and it did pretty well, but it’s unlikely that any single tablet coming out is going to outsell the iPad. It’s more of a question of whether collectively they will reach parity with the iPad.

What we’ve seen in the smartphone space in the past 12 months, as Android has expanded dramatically, is that the growth from Android has been straight up and the growth of the iPhone has been largely flat.

So it stands to reason that we’ll see a similar dynamic in the tablet market. Apple had the lion’s share of the market in 2010 because it basically had the market all to itself. But most forecasters see other tablets on other platforms—not individual tablets but tablets on competing operating systems, specifically Android—chipping away at Apple’s lead.

Question: Let’s say you’re a brand manager and you’ve budgeted a little money to experiment with tablets in 2011. What’s the smartest thing you can do with that money?

Answer: Of course, it depends on the brand and on the objectives. If you’re a marketer and you’re doing display advertising, you are faced with similar choices as you are with smartphones. If you are trying to build awareness, you can do some display advertising on the tablet. You either go with the mass-market approach on one or more of the many mobile ad networks, or you invest the significant resources to put up an iAd, which would then restrict you to the Apple platform.

Naturally there are apps as well and they require some investment—of both resources and in developing attainable goals and objectives. An app does need to be accompanied by some solid thinking about where the app fits within the larger brand strategy, but it remains a solid approach, especially if you want to deliver an immersive experience. Branded utilities—apps that carry the brand name and which do something useful for the end user—also work quite well, such as an airline app that allows users to book flights and check in.

One thing that Apple did intelligently with the iPad is that it developed the platform to handle apps designed specifically to run on the larger form factor. That’s not something that the current version of Android allows for. We saw some CES previews this week of a version of Android (dubbed Honeycomb) that is optimized for tablets and it looks quite impressive, but remember that by the time it comes to market, Apple will already be coming to market with the second version of the iPad.

Marketers should look very carefully at the new tablets and operating systems coming down the line this year. In this particular market segment, Apple will remain the leader through 2012 at the very least, but that doesn’t mean that brands should not consider Android and even BlackBerry tablets.

It’s also worthwhile to consider working with the larger digital platforms such as Amazon and Google, which are expanding their media presence (Amazon with music and video and Google with music and video through YouTube). There is a way that you could work through companies like these that serve as distribution partners.

Question: What is the most important thing for marketers to understand about tablets during this “year of the tablet”?

Answer: The tablet is a different kind of device—a hybrid of mobile and computing. One of the things to watch is the extent to which people are using tablets as communication devices as well as media distribution devices: Some of the recently introduced Android tablets include video-chatting capabilities, and the second-generation iPad is expected to carry these as well.

Of course it’s unlikely that people will do away with their phones right away. But one of the things this trend dovetails with is that people are using their phones less and less as phones—especially younger people. It changes our idea of what a phone is—sometimes a phone more important for its computer-like functions than phone-like functions. And as enterprise interest in tablets grows, it will be interesting to see the opportunities for tablets as a work utility and for communication purposes.

Question: Will there be offices with iPads on the desks instead of landlines and PCs?

Answer: I don’t think tablets will take the place of PCs just yet. But as the enterprise suites become more robust, they make tablets more viable for business users. The enterprise is one area that tablets lag behind laptops and netbooks, but again, we can look to the growth of smartphones to see what we can expect with tablets.

The iPhone was introduced as a consumer device, but because of its appeal, people in enterprises demanded iPhones from their IT departments. So Apple backed its way into the business market, and started to penetrate areas that were traditionally the province of BlackBerry and Microsoft. We will see a similar trend in the tablet market this year.

The 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which wrapped up this week in Las Vegas, saw the introduction of a slew of tablets, suggesting that 2011 will at be the year of the tablet. But amidst the high-flying talk of “iPad killers,” device manufacturers also rolled out an impressive slate of new smartphones, many prepped for the wireless carriers’ new, faster 4G networks.

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