Yesterday, Forrester Research released a new report on social media trends called A Global Update of Social Technographics which revealed a number of different key findings as noted by two of their blog posts by Jackie Rousseau-Anderson and Augie Ray.

There are a number of key findings in this report namely the fact that the number of “creators” (those who generate social content) has reached a plateau over the past year…although in the US more than 1 in 5 online adults are exhibiting a creator behavior – which to me seems pretty high.

As Ray says in his blog post, “This will cause marketers and those who produce social tools to focus more on how social content is consumed rather than how it is produced.”

While the number of creators has leveled off, the number of “joiners” (those with a social media profile) continues grow significantly.

Ray continues to share his valuable thoughts, “The fact that Joiners continue to grow means marketers must continue to focus their attention and budgets on social networks in 2011. More people will spend more time and get more information through social networks, and where consumer time and attention goes, so will marketer investment.”

Do these high-level findings result in a potential social dilemma or opportunity for agencies, consultants and communications professionals?

I continue on to review Rousseau-Anderson’s post on the study where she shares some additional insights into what Forrester is calling “The Social Technographics Ladder”

The updated stats reveal the following about consumers (who can fall into more than one category):

• 23% Creators
• 31% Conversationalists
• 19% Collectors
• 59% Joiners
• 68% Spectators
• 19% Inactives

My take on these stats is there is a tremendous opportunity for businesses who decide to take a well thought out strategic approach to their social engagement efforts. The initial wave of consumers using social media has halted and we now need to focus on creating value for those that are there.

On the other hand this could be a dilemma for those brands that don’t take a social media strategy seriously.

As always, I’d love and appreciate your thoughts on this topic…what do you think lies ahead – social dilemma or opportunity?