Will Social and Business Video Intersect in the Future?

Daniel Newman, founder of BroadSuite Consulting, considers the possibility of using social media video to connect with clients or suppliers in a business setting.

Daniel Newman

Perhaps it feels like it is already happening, but technology is slowly but surely taking over our lives.

Did you know that more than 90% of smart phone users have their phone within arms reach 24 hours a day? Talk about problems with intimacy; we sleep with our cell phones closer than our mates. Might that have something to do with relationships strains?

All kidding aside, we do pretty much live on our devices. In a typical day we go from cell phone to iPad to desktop and usually back to one mobile device or another as we consume and communicate around the clock.

Social Media Bug Hits Just About Everyone

At this point in time, there are well over a billion people using social media every day. Whether your channel of choice is Facebook, Twitter or business network LinkedIn, many of us are visiting one or more of these networks each day.

For the longest time these channels were ways that we could share text updates. However, text updates soon became text and links, which then became text, links and embedded graphics. Essentially moving from just reading to a full multimedia experience. This trend is continuing up the technology food chain as once again we are seeing motion that is taking us beyond just text and pictures and now toward a more immersive experience.

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In recent months we have seen a surge in popularity of video on social platforms. First there were video sharing networks like YouTube. Since then we have seen the emergence of apps like Vine where short videos are the highlight of the platform. Now Facebook has started tinkering with video in our streams. They are also developing a video-based ad platform so now we can be even more annoyed by the amount of advertisements cluttering our stream.

What I don’t see is the possibility of video going away and for people who connect on social platforms to become lower tech. Begging the question, is there an opportunity for social media and video to collide at an enterprise level?

Where We Are Today With Social Video Communication

Today we are already seeing Facebook, Skype and Google offer consumer type video solutions that can be launched via social networks.

Perhaps the evolution is being led by platforms like Google Plus which recently announced, in partnership with HP, the launch of a room-based video solution that may leverage the Google platform.

The idea of being able to, within a couple of clicks from a social network, launch a face-to-face communication with a potential client or supplier has to at the very least be wetting the appetites of other business video leaders like Polycom, Cisco and Lifesize.

What Could Video Look Like if Social and Business Video Collide?

Can you imagine what our online experience could look like if we could launch a secure video call on a private enterprise network via a social platform?

Today this is the limitation as all of the embedded video solutions are run over public cloud and therefore are property of the platform.

To translate this to enterprise, the ideal platform would have to allow for users to exit the public cloud hosted by these various social platforms and launch somewhere private to secure the communication. This is probably the biggest hurdle.

Having said that, the possibilities of a technological world where a tool like Jabber or Webex can become ubiquitous with a Facebook company page or a Twitter stream creates some unprecedented marketing and customer service opportunities that are out of this world.

If and when the various technology platforms get on board with something like this is to be seen, but there is no question we are heading in that direction.

Social business video is still a mere idea, or perhaps better described a dream, but in the future our communication experience, voice, video and messaging will collide with social media. The only question is who will get there first and will the players we expect be the ones to lead the change?

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About the Author

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I am a principal analyst of Futurum Research and CEO of Broadsuite Media Group. I spend my time researching, analyzing and providing the world’s best and brightest companies with insights as to how digital transformation, disruption, innovation and the experience economy are changing how business is done. Bringing together the technology layer with the human layer, I seek to solve the biggest challenges that companies have today; how to grow, scale, change and adapt to a world where technology and media shift at breakneck speed. So what does this mean? It means that I spend my life learning about what drives people to adopt new technology so I can share those secrets with companies that are ready to take their business to the next level. From keynoting on the world’s largest stages to weekly insights on Forbes, MarketWatch and our owned media properties, my goal is to provide our clients with what they need to know to out innovate and turn disruption from threat, into a business model for success.

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