The social landscape is ‘insanely’ complicated

Or is it simply a case that we've now no excuse, fellow marketers?

I've seen this graphic (below) appear a few times now and the general consensus appears to be:

 "wow - how insanely complicated is social media"

see an example here.

I really disagree that this is in any way negative, so much so that I'm eventually compelled to post on the topic.

Update 15th June 2012: A new diagram has also been released this week by SMI which shows that it's not so complex in reality. We like the attempt to simplify!

 But, back to my main point, I feel some people are missing the gilt-edged opportunity…

1. It's nowhere near as complicated as it looks. Why? As marketers we should be using a process to focus on our own consumers/personas and not get obsessed with the vast array of channels and tactics, you'll quickly shorten the list of channels that you need to really worry about by being customer-orientated, not marketing channel (or even product/service) orientated. Our marketing radar concept helps with this logic.
2. It's going to get a lot "worse," if that's really your perspective. I think smart marketers know and wholly accept that social media does not mean Facebook and that the 'trend' of social media is not passing, it's an era. We're going to see more and more niche or vertical communities emerge, it's inevitable, it's how our world works and how humans always want to connect and form kinship with other like-minded people.
3. This is a massive gift to marketers. How can it not be? You get to use your creativity and marketing intelligence to do actual marketing - instead of finding new ways to advertise and interrupt like your competitors. How great is that, you have more outposts to consider, to add value, to use content marketing and social media marketing tactics to build a following for your brand, driving that inspired traffic back to your website - check out our inbound marketing blueprint.
4. There's lots of know-how. We can see more case studies, tools, apps, channels, apps, widgets, books, guides, blogs, advice, experts, gurus than ever to "show you how." It just means you now get to decide "how", just do it before your competitors do.

Of course, you have to do the work, but then we all know that the marketing game has changed. It's not easy either, yet what is? Yes - throwing money at meaningless ad spend and praying is tonnes easier, but does that really work for you, honestly? Instead, with focus on your high value target audience and applying some considered planning,  you can get started with some serious content based marketing.

What say you?

The same guys also created one for mobile, equally interesting though pretty confusing, at least from my perspective.