Meghan Peters at Mashable wrote a very helpful post about where she thinks Community Management will go in 2012.

1. Perfecting Post Timing – The data that pours out of social media can be intoxicating. Once you have spent some good time engaging with your community, go through the data. You’ll find peak posting times and the best keywords to use. Tools like SocialFlow and Page Lever can help with this.

2. Community-Driven Content and Products – Content development is perhaps one of the most time consuming aspects of Community Management. 2012 could bring an end to the content call-to-action. Simple interfaces within communities can generate oodles of content. Just look at the BuzzFeed community. They have pros and community members posting, each getting an equal shot at exposure.

3. Niche is Back – What started with sites like Ning is being continued by Pinterest and Paper.li. The quickly generated and highly visual content on these sites has exploded in popularity. Community Managers have a huge opportunity to use these outlets to develop and show their brand’s content.

Read more predictions on Mashable