{"id":14344,"date":"2013-05-22T10:13:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T17:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.web-strategist.com\/blog\/?p=14344"},"modified":"2013-05-22T20:45:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T03:45:35","slug":"why-social-business-headcount-decreases-before-radically-expanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/22\/why-social-business-headcount-decreases-before-radically-expanding\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Social Business Headcount Decreases Before Radically Expanding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jeremiah_owyang\/8788179588\/\" title=\"Screen Shot 2013-05-22 at 9.55.48 AM by jeremiah_owyang, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2857\/8788179588_74b0c89f45.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2013-05-22 at 9.55.48 AM\"><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Above Image:  Headcount of social business (circled in orange) slightly decreases before large growth.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Social Business Headcounts Change as Programs Mature<\/strong><br \/>\nLike the calm before the storm, your social business headcount is likely to decrease 10-20% before it radically expands. \u00a0Altimeter found through two independent surveys to enterprise class (Companies with over 1000 employees) survey respondents in different years that they both have a drop off in headcount at year 2-4. \u00a0We&#8217;ve survey corporations both in 2010, as well as in Q4 2012 to find out how social business programs are structured. \u00a0Much of the research was recently published in the report, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.web-strategist.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/08\/altimeter-research-social-business-spreads-across-the-enterprise\/\">the Evolution of Social Business<\/a>. \u00a0So why this change?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>After experimentation, unchecked programs get sanitized as a central body takes control.<\/strong>\u00a0 Many companies I&#8217;ve seen inside of have often experimental programs occurring for the first 1-3 years. \u00a0Labeled skunkworks, rogue, or sandbox programs, this &#8220;wild west&#8221; grows out of control, sometimes causing stress or resulting in a social media crises. \u00a0Often corporate communications, marketing, blessed by an executive sponsor seeks to wrangle control of these programs, by anointing a working team to build a strategy. \u00a0In short, the wild wild west moves from unchecked teams in outposts to a new centralized model.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A core team consolidates, finds efficiencies in a hub and spoke model.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0We often see companies emerge in a hub and spoke model, where a core team is serving the rest of the company in a coordinated fashion. \u00a0This leader, the Corporate Social Strategist, leads the charge, often reducing excess headcount deploying social and along with it, rogue efforts. \u00a0Interestingly, the data shows this happening in the 2010 early market at year 3-4. \u00a0Yet fast forward two years to 2012 and we see the consolidation happen much earlier, in years 2-3, as companies have gotten wiser from their peers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Explosive growth occurs as team scales in &#8220;dandelion&#8221;, multiple hub and spoke model.<\/strong>\u00a0 After the consolidation occurs in both program strategy and the headcount as illustrated in the above diagram, companies see explosive growth as the company &#8220;gets the social religion&#8221;. \u00a0If the core team has structured their program up for scale, they will have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.web-strategist.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/31\/report-social-media-crises-on-rise-be-prepared-by-climbing-the-social-business-hierarchy-of-needs\/\">invested in social readiness<\/a>, as well as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.web-strategist.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/05\/buyers-guide-a-strategy-for-managing-social-media-proliferation-altimeter-report\/\">have a strategy to avoid massive proliferation<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Social business follows a cycle expansion, contraction, then explosion before maturity.<\/strong> Two data distinct data sets helped to tell this story. Expect to see social business programs hit maturity to consistently spread across the enterprise in a safe manner after 5-6 years with proper care and planning. Watch the patterns in your company, after rapid consolidation and program efficiency occurs, be prepared for radical growth as the rest of the enterprise business groups start to adopt social, including their own social leaders in business lines, departments, geographies and product units.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Above Image: Headcount of social business (circled in orange) slightly decreases before large growth. Social Business Headcounts Change as Programs Mature Like the calm before the storm, your social business headcount is likely to decrease 10-20% before it radically expands. &nbsp;Altimeter found through two independent &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/22\/why-social-business-headcount-decreases-before-radically-expanding\/\" class=\"more-link\"><span>Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why Social Business Headcount Decreases Before Radically Expanding<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-altimeter","category-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web-strategist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}