The folks over at HubSpot released results of a survey that indicates marketers expect the importance of Facebook and Google to seriously decline over the next three years. The marketers are part of the Inbound Marketing Summit and 80% of them agree on the decline trend.
The experts also say that while Google and Facebook will decline three years from now, over 25% of the inbound marketing experts think something new ("other") will be the most important website for marketers.
Ok, so while I've yet to read the book or ask any other question, I do have an issue with this "survey." If the sample was 2,000 marketers, I'd give this some serious thought. But 19 "experts" say that there is going to be a decline?
I'm not buying it whatsoever. If 1,500 out of 2,000 agreed on the decline, I'd believe it.
What I do believe is that the expert marketers are right in terms of "something else" popping up in the next three years and getting all the attention.
You see, the social media space is built on innovation and if you follow the companies, the people and the trends in the space, you will see things popping up every day. At some point, someone will strike gold and it will be the "new thing." Just look at Twitter three years ago. Same for Facebook. We talk about these services like they are 10 years old, but they are still babies in terms of their life cycles.
So HubSpot, the summit is a great idea and the collection of speakers is fantastic. However, if you really want to make some waves in the space with news like this, increase your sample size, which will add some legitimacy to the content.
Graphic Credit: HubSpot
Article first published as Google and Facebook to Decline in Importance, Experts Say on Technorati.