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Follow UsINDIA, MUMBAI: Facebook will be the No. 1 social network in all but 25 countries, according to Gartner’s predictions for CRM in 2010 and beyond, which was released today.
In countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and Japan it will not be No. 1, predicted Gartner, Inc, an information technology research and advisory firm.
“Facebook membership hit 300 million in September 2009, and is roughly doubling each year,” said Ed Thompson, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “It is reasonable to assume that it will attain a membership of 600 million by the end of 2010 based on the trajectory in 2009,” Thompson added.
The researcher also predicted that through 2010, marketing budgets would remain flat in more than 90 per cent of companies, despite a return to growth.
Another prediction is that by the end of 2010, more than 80 per cent of market growth in social applications will center around a business use case for improving external customer relationships, rather than improving internal collaboration.
Social projects evaluated by Gartner show that those with a clear and direct mutual purpose (benefits for both company and customer) were the ones likely to show measurable results, said the report.
Gartner said that the social application vendors that make the transition from general purpose to support for specific business, with use cases and key performance indicators, will see double- or triple-digit growth in 2010.
Gartner foresaw that by the end of 2011, more than 90 per cent of Fortune 1000 marketing campaigns will include online marketing, up from 50 per cent in 2009.
The prediction is one in a series Gartner analysts have made on customer relationship management (CRM) in areas including CRM marketing and social CRM, the researcher said in a press release.
“For most organizations, the single most logical way to differentiate the business is through great customer experiences, rather than having the lowest cost or most innovative products and services,” observed Thompson.