Social Media – 3 Stages of Revolution

There are times when a new concept is introduced and, although it is revolutionary, it doesn’t get the attention it deserves, except by a few visionaries. I remember when we first started our computer training company in the early ’80s and we were teaching Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. Then a little company called Microsoft came along. At first people were reluctant to take our courses on Excel and Word. Oh the complaints I heard about this thing called a “mouse.”

At other times, something new comes along and everyone sees that it is going to be a big deal and jumps on board. Think about the internet, everyone knew in the ’90s that it was going to be revolutionary. Pizza Hut was the first company to jump on board with a commercial website in 1992 (remember that for trivia night.)

Unlike our first example where the few (Microsoft and Apple) made a fortune, in our second example everyone jumped on board and no one made Income – just a lot of chaos and hype.

This is what is referred to as Stage 1.

In Stage 2, everyone becomes disillusioned and goes home. Think of the.com crash in the late ’90s. People dropped out of the internet and were closed down over night causing chaos and disillusionment.

Then in Stage 3, sanity returns and the “real” players emerge and they deliver real value. Some of these players have been providing value all along – think Google – it just took some time to realize that value.

Social Media is going through this same cycle. We are probably at Stage 2.5 with understanding the real value of Social Media. Some still think it is a lot of hype and there is no real business value in social media.

As a small business owner, you can’t ignore this stage. Your customers and clients are using social media. They are talking about you whether you like it or not. Will you be a business that takes advantage of this marketing medium or will you wait for the phase to pass?