Recently while having a chat to Graham Wallington CEO of WildEarth TV about all things social media, we discussed how certain markets are much more “mature” in their adoption of social media as part of their business model and are more keenly aware of everything involved in the process.
This actually reminded me of a blog post earlier this month by Gijsbert van der Sleen of MAXX//online where he discussed what he called the Social Media Maturity Model. Here are the three stages as presented by Gijsbert:

• 1) pioneering: initiated buy the end-user, local initiatives, fulfilling personal interests. Separate initiatives. Focus on informal communication and accessibility of information.
• 2) facilitating: successes of the pioneering stage leads to wider acceptance and increased demand. Need for more structure and re-use of best-practices. Initiatives will be based on a high-level business case.
• 3) strategic: enterprise 2.0 part of the culture and DNA of the organisation and operations. Focus on knowledge sharing, innovation and collaboration.

I think this is quite accurate. The first stage is well underway in South Africa. The adoption by the end user is a given. There are also an ever increasing number of individuals in companies as well as small business owners who are beginning to experiment and communicate using platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The massive “groundswell” of “bottom up” participation is filtering into the consciousness of business in general and a larger number of businesses are beginning to look at what the “buzz” is all about.
But mistakes are being made and will continue to be made. It’s all part of the maturing process. What is called for is structure.
Personally I see some of the biggest mistakes being made due to a lack of awareness about the absolute necessity for a strategy and a lack of understanding of the complexities involved in developing a strategy. As businesses get help to create strategy and structure we will see more organizations follow the example of WildEarth and have social media become part of their culture and DNA.