The most dangerous thing about social media for "big business" is that its influence is barely noticeable on traditional measurement systems....


Market share, mind share, recognition, recall... all measure the mass market.
Would any big company recognize .5% of their market-share disappearing? Should they really give a fuck about that paltry number, is it going to hit their share price? Their volume?
What if I said that was the best, most passionate, most creative, most talented, most vocal, most evangelical .5% of their customers leaving, to go and create something amazing with another company? A company so small you've never heard of it, and won't until it's big enough to eat your lunch.
Not only that, these companies that engage that amazing, magical, .5% of the customer base are not going to spend a dime on advertising, and are going to grow organically through word of mouth. Oh, and their viral campaigns will work better than yours as well because they have that tiny percentage of influencers.
How are you going to keep that .5%? Hmmm, not only that, how are you going to gainfully employ their passion and creativity?
Related:
The co-creative business show - episode 2 - why co-creation is disruptive
Attract and motivate through customer experience
Creating passionate users
church of the customer