Is Social Media to Big?

An article on Forbes.com, "Are Corporations Giving Up on Social Media?" talks about how the use of social media in Fortune 500 companies did not grow in 2011.  It takes research from  University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook and how much use Fortune 500 companies are using them.  The article states, "About one-quarter (23 percent) of the 2011 F500 have corporate public-facing blogs with a post in the past 12 months...Well more than half (62 percent) of the 2011 F500 have corporate Twitter accounts with a tweet in the past thirty days...Fifty-eight percent of the 2011 F500 have Facebook pages."  So, what can we take away from this data?

I have two thoughts on this subject matter:

1) There are to many social media sources out there.  Facebook, Twitter, Google+, blogs, Youtube, MySpace, and many others allow for companies to create and try to maintain upkeep on them all.  Along with the variety to choose from companies also must try to figure out which ones their customer base is using.  Is it rational to have an account for every social media source out there?  Probably not so choosing which one(s) to use can be very important for a company. 

2) There is a need for this skill set with in Fortune 500 companies.  Social media is a fast growing and fast paced concept.  To be able to handle multiple accounts and keep those all up to date can be difficult even from a personal level let alone a Fortune 500 company.  Technology is rapidly growing as well meaning how consumers are using social media is growing as well.  This idea of a new skill set needed is further backed up by the amount of college classes you can now take that focus on social media.  More and more colleges are adding social media classes or incorporating it into classes they already offer. 

Social media is something that will only continue to grow.  How business will adapt to it will continue to change over the next few years as well.  You may find yourself going back to school to get a degree in Facebooking or Twittering.