Ian Aronovich, CEO of GovernmentAuctions.org, believes that more small businesses will integrate social login on their websites in 2011. "Social login is where you can use your Facebook, Yahoo and Google IDs [among others] to login to various websites," he says. "It's quick and easy to use. Social login is great because people don't need to create dozens of new usernames and passwords every time they find a site that they want to use."
Because Facebook is the most popular social network and Internet users' top choice for social login, small businesses may want to focus initial efforts on the platform. "A study by Social Labs shows that 50% of ecommerce visitors are logged in to Facebook simultaneously," says marketing manager Alanna Francis of Blue Fountain Media. "This means that with Facebook Open Graph integration, small businesses can show customers recommendations and Likes from their social circles. Since many retailers have shown that social reinforcement increases sales, small businesses will want to consider this strategy in 2012."
6. Businesses Pull Back on Daily Deal Spend
Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial brought lots of excitement in 2011. While we saw a lot of small businesses success stories in the group buying space, we also heard of a number of disasters, including the story of a baker who almost went out of business after running a Groupon deal. For small businesses running on low margins, daily deals aren't worth it.
"The daily deals tallies on customer retention and profitability continue to be ugly for merchants," says Tarek Pertew, co-founder of Parrut. "A recent Rice University study suggests that nearly half of all merchants are making money on deals. And with Groupon’s own data suggesting that only 22% of customers are coming back, we [at Parrut] assume that a significant pullback is due. That said, the daily deal business is evolving, and it’ll certainly be a major outlet for lead gen spend going forward. At the same time, we think small businesses used daily deals as a ‘gateway’ to social marketing, but will now focus on their own content and other technologies which give them more control over sustainable growth and profit."
7. Scheduling Continues to Go Cloud
Jerry Nettuno, founder and CEO of Schedulicity, may be a little biased, but we like where his head's at. "The appointment book is dead," he says. "The business sector as a whole has seen a shift to automation. The success of sites like Schedulicity, OpenTable and ZocDoc only reinforce the idea that the traditional pen and paper appointment book may see its demise in 2012. The number of online appointments is growing exponentially, as Schedulicity alone has seen nearly 7 million appointments booked online since mid-2009. Over the next two to five years, the physical appointment book will be gone altogether and replaced with online counterparts."
In 2010, Seattle-based Emerson Salon, sourced 75% of its business from Twitter, Facebook and its blog, greatly due to its online booking options and social media savvy. Other small businesses should take note and move towards digital scheduling in 2012.