It’s that time of year when everyone is posting about 2012 and giving us their predictions and thoughts on a myriad of topics and trends.

Perhaps, when it comes to trends, it’s technology, Social Media and mobile that still manages to grab headlines.  It’s the speed of development and the accessibility that most of us now have to these developments that means the trends, the ideas and the developments are so meaningful.  We really are living through a revolution, folks.

One article caught my idea where the author talked about ‘Transmedia’

– As social media goes beyond mere blogging and photo/video/music posts—it’s swiftly moving to become a platform to integrate an “experience” into the marketing schema -Transmedia is essentially a means of telling a story by using surrounding context to determine the meaning for a participant.

I’ve been reading about transmedia for a number of years now and have heard several related definitions and views.  I’m not here to come up with my own but, when reading the above article, a couple of words jumped out at me – ‘experience’ and ‘context’.

We’ve reached a point now where it might be reasonable to say that some basic level has been reached by some when it comes to using Social Media – there are some who have quite sensible integrated (in a way) campaigns and have a good grasp of what they are trying to achieve.  Others continue to struggle and some still are yet to be convinced.

We see Social Media references everywhere.  I commented some time ago about some organizations only promoting their facebook pages.  Facebook logos and page addresses are everywhere now.  I just returned to Singapore from an extended stay in London and it’s commonplace now to see Twitter hashtags promoted at the beginning of TV programmes.

There has also been activity from some on Foursquare, Instagram and other peripheral sites and YouTube and Vimeo have been used to host video content.  All this and still we have the ‘old’ websites – the relevance of which I suggest will increasingly be the subject of debate.  (It’s still a favorite question of mine to pose to Social Media panels – ‘Website OR Facebook page’)

As we move into 2012 I predict that we shall see some brands and organizations beginning to create integrated and, to go back to my words above, campaigns and engagement with a focus on a great experience driven from a position of context.

Each Social Media channel has its own opportunities and limitations.  There is (amongst many) the immediacy of Twitter, the huge potential reach of Facebook and, for the time being, the obligatory need to be recognized by Google when it comes to search.

As consumers we have relationships with brands that form a journey with distinct phases and stops along the way.  Sometimes we are searching from a relatively uninformed position – sometimes with a low price as our key criteria and other times with more aspirational and emotive drivers.

Sometimes we can be heavily influenced by others who have used a product or service and we might reach a point when we too want to shout about how good something was or rant about a poor experience.  There are times when I need to be inspired by rich content and times when I don’t.  Sometimes I really don’t care about how nice the hotel rooms are, I just want to know how to get there and what time the restaurant opens.  And then there’s my propensity to buy again and to evangelize.

I hope, in 2012, we see some examples where brands really begin to understand our brand-journeys and begin to really use channels where the context of my engagement at that specific point on the journey is both recognized and understood.

Providing me with relevant information delivered via an appropriate Social Media channel formatted for the right device at the right time will get noticed.

It will distinguish itself as a desirable experience and I will make room for it and them in my (unfortunately rather limited) attention stream.

Integrated campaigns used to mean re-purposing the same visuals and messages for TV, print and various below the line channels.  It’s far more complicated than that now and with the complication comes the opportunity for truly innovative experience creation.

It will mean a deep understanding of the customer and their needs and desires at every point along the engagement journey.  And then it will be a case of (putting it far too simply) what can brands do – with what, how often, on what and when.

It’s then and only then will there be some kind of (although I don’t generally like the word) synergy between how they are communicating and how we want to be communicated with.  These special connections are instantly recognizable by consumers and, to quote from a film. ‘more powerful than you can possible imagine’.

I really believe we are just scratching the surface and to talk about Social Media and mobile in terms of maturity or saturation is totally wrong.

We are on countless journeys of engagement with hundreds of brands, products and services.

The overriding journey of how digital and mobile might make some of those are more special than others has only just begun.