The Most Exciting Innovation Of 2013 According To LinkedIn

Yesterday, LinkedIn uploaded a 40-second video to their YouTube channel which explains the most exciting innovation for 2013. When I watched it, I was very inspired by the message. Of course, everyone has a different opinion about what the most exciting innovation is this year, but this perspective is particularly relevant to our Bit Rebels readers – especially those who are social media managers or who own a business or work from home.

If you are a business or brand who hasn’t taken advantage of social media yet, 2013 is definitely the year to get started. You may feel like it’s no use since you waited so long, or that it’s embarrassing to start now since you haven’t built an online following yet. I can promise that those things don’t matter to anyone except you. You’ve got to start somewhere, and it’s much better to get started now than to wait any longer. Every person and every brand starts at the same place in social media, and they build from there. You can do the same thing. Just devote a little time to it each day, and before you know it, you’ll have the hang of it.

According to this video by LinkedIn, which features Clara Shih, the most exciting innovation for 2013 is the maturation of social media for business. Even though this video is only 40 seconds long, there is a powerful message in here.

Imagine some people in an organization being specifically assigned to assist with customer service issues on Twitter, other people in product development assigned to getting feedback from Facebook fans about up and coming products, and someone else assigned to uploading pics from the company luncheon on Instagram. Instead of it all being lumped into ‘social media marketing,’ each aspect of the company would have a whole ecosystem within social media.

In other words, social media for business is evolving from just the boring ways many companies still use it and transforming into the online extension of every individual part of the whole company. Like Clara Shih says, “social media permeates potentially an entire organization.” It’s an exciting time to watch this transformation happen, and watch how companies are starting to come up with new, creative ways to use social media to not only increase their sales, but also to connect with consumers on a whole new level. What do you think the most exciting innovation of 2013 is?