Critical observations of 204 social media marketing examples

Last week, I shared a list
of about 120 companies using and/or being used by social media
marketing.  Less than a week later, that list has almost doubled solely
based on community contributions.  Thank you for sharing.

The list seems big enough to support some analysis.  What do you think about these three major criticisms?

1. Big companies are lagging indicators.

  • Although C.B. notes: "It’s amazing to realize how many
    organizations now have a presence [when they didn’t not very long ago]
    and also across several different platforms."
  • Alfonso responds: "Keep your eye on the big boys to
    get an idea of what the me-too crowd does. No doubt they do it bigger
    and louder, but they have to: they’re playing catch-up."
  • Robert agrees: "I think we all have the tendency
    to gravitate to the household names to illustrate social media
    examples, but these companies often are laggards."

2. Are these examples really social?

  • Dan points out: "There’s a difference between participating in social media and marketing via social media."
  • Tony takes this further: "Some of these examples feel a little more like social network digital advertising rather than social media."

3. Stuff is missing.

  • Tim asks: "Where are the ‘internal’ employee/partner examples?"
  • Philipp asks: "Are there more examples from Europe or the German speaking regions?"
  • Antje says: "Next list should be smaller companies without huge budgets."

Your thoughts, reactions, and observations are appreciated.

  • Should we really be watching SMBs instead?
  • Is this conversation or lecturing?
  • Why are we seeing these gaps?