• by Randall Beard , July 17, 2009

In a recent white paper, "The Future of the Social Web," Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang predicts the social web will soon morph through five stages, wreaking havoc on the way brands market. Owyang states:

"Today's social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit. A simple set of technologies that enable a portable identity will soon empower consumers to bring their identities with them ... IDs are just the beginning of this transformation ... Consumers will rely on their peers as they make online decisions, whether or not brands choose to participate. "

Portable Social Networks and Their Impact

Consumers will still use Facebook, LinkedIn and such, as they do today. What's different is that OpenID and similar capabilities will enable consumers to traverse the web, and have their networks flow with them. The implications are potentially profound.

Owyang points to a number of important changes which will be driven by portability:

• Social networks will aggregate member activities and preferences and leverage this data with brands

• Consumers will be able to expose all or portions of their personal and network information to the web sites they visit

• Web sites will be able to use the personal information enabled by OpenID to personalize consumers web experiences

• Consumers will visit web sites and know their communities usage, likes and dislikes, views of products or services, etc.

• Social communities will feed data and insights about web sites, brand experiences, product and services, etc. to members on an as wanted basis.

My interpretation: Marketers must rethink how they organize and market their brands. This is because the future social web will make "portable" the opinions, insights and knowledge of friends -- which all research shows is much more trusted than any other information source--as consumers travel the web and interact with brands, products and services.

Implications for Marketing

• Social Network Segmentation -- Segmentation will potentially move from traditional schemes to social networks. Not necessarily the group of friends an individual belongs to, but the aggregated set of individuals that tend to be like them based on habits, practices and preferences.

• Focus on "Amplifiers" -- Influencers will become more important because they will be omnipresent. Amplifiers will become portable and follow their non-amplifier friends and inform them as they travel the web. Marketers must identify these amplifiers and develop programs to interact with and influence them.

• Personalized User Generated Content -- Consumers will be able to see what their social network -- either their immediate network or people like them -- think of a given store, product or service, wherever they go on the web. Thus, user generated content will become more personalized--and more impactful. Marketing organizations will need to develop new tools to influence and monitor this new content.

• User Experience Personalization -- Consumers will come to your website, along with a wealth of information about themselves and their network. Brands can use this data to personalize the experience, recommend products, etc. Brands which fail to take advantage of this opportunity will be at a disadvantage.

Owyang predicts all this will happen in the next four to five years. Personally, this feels a bit aggressive. But, there's no doubt that if the world above materializes, even in 10 years, marketing will be a far different place than today with far reaching implications for how brands market themselves. The time is now to begin thinking through the implications of social network "portability" and how the Marketing organization of the future should be designed in response.