The Corporate Social Media Curve

Comments

[Aronado]

funny shit..Dave :)

cheers
@Aronado

[Ms. Pixel]

This is hilarious. I think over 50% of social media proposals die at the end of this curve.

[Tim Jahn]

Great visual! I thought "new media" was a pretty obvious term. Old habits die hard I suppose.

[CatchUpLady]

Seriously, this was my afternoon. Unfortunately I was operating on the down curve side.

[TIffany]

Ha. The 50% that don't die end up in a never ending strategic cycle. "Let's rethink" and so it begins again;)

Funny, thanks! @nolatlf

[Chris Finlay]

LoL. Needs an explosion or cross bones at the end!

[Annie Heckenberger]

I rarely read blogs beyond the specific scope of work on my plate anymore because sometime almost a year ago I noticed that people started saying the same things in the same ways with the same buzzwords, over and over. For me, it became a chore, to click thru to egocast over egocast in the social media and PR genres.

Your blog pleasantly surprises me. It's smart, it's fresh, it's like a breath of fresh air.

Thank you.

[Mark Bean]

Spot on.

[Tricia]

Fantastic and sadly true. How about a "fail whale" at the end or a twitter bird with 'x' for eyes.

[John Craft]

I just thought you should know that when I steal this . . . and I will . . . I don't plan to give you proper attribution ;)

Cause I had a very similar conversation with a client recently.

[FoolishAndy]

Perfect!

[Arnold - Mr.Gadget]

Very nicely put.

The world has caught up and we need to move beyond status quo.

[Ben Rowe]

so true

[Michael Melnick]

Good One.

[John Marshall Roberts]

You have an excellent capacity to display information visually, and a great sense of humor. Nice job.

[Stephan]

This is brilliant Dave thank you so much for these great visualizations that are also right on and very funny.

[Sonny Gill]

lol awesome - so the truth.

[Sean Gerety]

The same chart could be used with Marketing (instead of legal) when it comes to UX in software. A lot of big companies really want to constrain the "brand" of software that most enterprise companies release.

[Adam Gershenbaum]

Top notch. Massive LULZ were had. I want to work this into a powerpoint.

[Joseph Rueter]

I have seen all of those. Well captured.

[eaon]

so you do 'get' irony. v funny.

[Alex]

HAHA

so true

[Andy Didyk]

Right on. I think I'm going to use this at my next client presentation =).

Thanks David.

[Shawn]

This graph is so true!
I met with some clients who were very passionate and curious about social media at the beginning and came out a lot of "creative" ideas.

But after rounds and rounds of discussion and their reports to the higher levels, everything goes back to zero. Probably worse than a "youtube video" shown in this graph, they just want to revamp their website, make it more visually appealing.....

Corporate ladder really kills social media sometimes

[jackie]

Hilarious! I'm sure this will make the rounds

[Mike Wagner]

To be fair to corporations...just for giggles; if you were organizing to a group of people to support social media and conversations you wouldn't come up with typical business structure.

It's not what they were designed for.

So, my question is, how would you design a business in such a way that it could take advantage of social media?

I'll be you have an idea or two David.

Keep creating,
Mike

[David Armano]

Mike,

Great question. I'd say that corporations have to become more comfortable acting like individuals. Or have the stones that Michael Dell had to launch their social initiatives, or the Culture that Tony H. started at Zappos, or the customer centrality of Southwest, or the Wilingness to try like Comcast.

While at the surface, this visual seems like satire, it's actually a call for change. There are so many ways we can add value in this space, but it's going to take things like working around the legal dept to make that happen. And if that obstacle is impossible to work around (healthcare, government sectors) then perhaps it's better to market yourself more traditionally.

Not sure if this is as much an answer as it is an opinion Mike, but thank you for the question.

[bonnieL]

Let's do something!

bonnieL

[Mike Wagner]

David,

Thanks for the follow up to my question. I like how your visual opens up this conversation! It gets to why we need new "wine skins" in the larger corporations and businesses of our marketplace.

Maybe a gathering and a conversation around the organizational development issues that social media strategies face would be move the ball a bit?

Thanks for stirring things up!

Keep creating,
Mike

[Jessica]

Can't stop giggling over this. I don't normally send "forwards" but for the company I keep, this is definitely forward worthy.

So glad I subscribe to your posts.

[Adam Singer]

This is epic...well done =)

[Matt Dickman]

Incredibly accurate David. Those are the words I hate most to hear. When it comes to litigation vs. innovation most companies retreat back to safety instead of creating new, updated policies to adapt to the world as it is today. I'm sure this will find its way into many a presentation deck.

[Luisa Agante]

Unfortunately this is reality for most of the agencies and advertising people :( do u have clientes coming to ur site :)

[Mary Paul Stewart]

Painfully real...

[Steve Murthey]

Hi Dave. Just discovered your blog. It’s great – I’m subscribing.

Excellent graphic – it illustrates one of my recent blogs in a single picture! I consistently counsel prospects & clients on precisely this. They should get legal (and other internal organizations like IT) on board with their new social media initiative as early as possible; otherwise it can be painful when their initiative gets crushed in the 11th hour. Better to have to tweak your strategy early than trash it late. Not to mention wasted effort and opportunity lost.

Unfortunately, too many folks think the opposite approach is best. At OMMA just last month I heard one consultant (attendee, not speaker) expound the exact inverse – keep IT, legal, and upper management out of it. I send best wishes to whoever heeds THAT message…

Steve Murthey
Director or Strategic Consulting
Mzinga

[Lesley White]

Sad but very true. At the end can there be a "that social media agency was hopeless, we got no results!" ;)

[Paul Jones]

Hi David:

This is hysterical because it's true.

Forgive the self-reference, but I covered an analog in my blog on cause marketing that I called "Scared Pointless."

It's about a relationship between Walgreens and the American Diabetes Association of which I wrote; “thanks for your money, but don’t stand too close when you hand us the check.”

Warm regards,
Paul

[Aden Davies]

Love it...love it...love it. I have a meeting somewhere between point 3 & 4 next week...thankfully now I have a fallback position as shown in point 6

[Clinton Colmenares]

This is so true it hurts!
Thanks for saying it in a way that, hopefully, most people can understand.
From inside an academic medical center, where legitimately newsworthy work happens, a distinction between corporate marketing and news is essential. Fortunately, as former reporters our group knows this.
Hey to Paul Jones up there!

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