From corporate blogging to responsive design: small or medium-sized companies that ignore the key trends will be in a bad position in the future, believes Lars Hahn from the LVQ careers consultancy in Mülheim. The social media expert is primarily responsible for external communication, marketing, and public relations. He believes that business networks and Twitter are playing an increasingly important role for companies.

I first came into contact with social media

in 1996, when I started my first blog (it wasn’t called that back then). Social was already the networking that took place primarily offline at the time. In a narrower sense, I have been quite active with OpenBC, later XING, since 2005, and since then, I have always included the social media aspect in the career advice that we offer.

I give the following advice to customers/business partners

Social media is characterized by the “social” aspect, i.e., by networking. For me, this works more like marketing and sales through channels. It is also important to plan independently of the platform because individual social media platforms can suddenly change their rules to the detriment of the companies using them, as we recently learned with the reduction in the organic reach of Facebook pages. The best thing: rely on your platforms, such as a website and blog.

How should a digital campaign be designed to be successful?

The ideal is, of course, organic, viral distribution through enthusiastic users. It is better to have patience and to constantly work on the reach. A consistent organic reach is better than targeted, purchased kicks.

What development in recent years has surprised me the most?

The success of Instagram last year was surprising to me. Also, XING is the only remaining German network of importance.

You will find me at the following conferences (trade fairs, meetings) this year

various bar camps, Twittwochs on the Rhine and Ruhr, and the Zukunft Personal trade fair, which has HR as a special topic but relies heavily on social media in terms of content and communication. And, of course, I am already looking forward to re:publica 2015.

These social networks will play a particularly important role in 2014/15

Instagram: The simplicity and reach of the images are increasingly convincing companies.
Twitter Will finally take off in the developing country of Germany.
LinkedIn and XING: The realization that business takes place in business networks is becoming more and more widespread.

For me, the three most important social media trends for 2014/15 are

Facebook and Google will continue to buy up smaller platforms and “commercialize” them. Organic reach will become more and more difficult as a result.
Corporate blogging will become more important. SMEs will also increasingly rely on blogs, just like us. Mobile will finally replace the old PC workstation. Anyone who doesn’t have a responsive website yet will be left behind.