For those of you who are new to the social space, this post does not entirely apply to you, though it perhaps eventually will.  So you can keep reading to see what will might happen to you.

Plateau #1

• You’ve created half assed personas in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin
• You’ve added and perhaps bought followers, fans, likes, subscribers and contacts
• You’ve created a blog and have added a few posts
• You have pushed out some weak, self serving content on all of them
• You had no strategy
• You quit because, you see nothing gained and you claim that social media does not work

Plateau #2

• You have done everything in Plateau #1 and…
• You have added/bought thousands of people to your networks
• You push out content on all of your networks but it’s over the top and self serving
• You monitor all of your networks…sort of
• You have engaged with people somewhat
• Your activities have tailed off because it takes too much work and you’re not seeing the results and you’re not convinced that social media works. Pretty soon, it dies a slow death.

Plateau #3

• You have identified and created personas in the right networks that fit your needs
• You understand that it’s a marathon and not a sprint
• You manage and grow all of your networks thoughtfully and effectively
• You measure all of your efforts effectively
• You create and meet all of your existing KPI’s
• You adapt and you create new KPI’s
• You create, adjust, and redefine your strategy accordingly
• You thrive

As you can see, the 3 plateaus are fairly well defined and quite different. Most of you have done all or parts of each. Those that can get to the third plateau can certainly speak to the other two. Those that have quit after one or two, certainly know why they did. What’s your smell test?