You see the label everywhere cropping up all over the cyberspace landscape these days as people pridefully rush to establish their dominance and touting themselves as a Social Media Expert. The media mavens meandering through the different social circuits donning their self proclaimed titles and crowns of credible competency in these burgeoning markets that have only in recent years begun to take on as much of a role in our online interactions and business. That leaves two lingering complicated questions with two not so complicated answers. How is expertise in this arena even possible, and what makes someone a social media expert? The answers are, it’s not, and usually their own self aggrandizing opinion.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not saying that some relative amount of insight and knowlegde into the inner workings of the social media scene is not possible. I know several very well established participants in certain social media circuits that I would call potential pros and masters of one or two of these outlets. But you see, just because you are able to move your skills in one of these communities to somewhere above and beyond mediocre, this does not qualify you as an expert by any stretch. Expertise takes years to hone and craft, and lets face it, social media has grown by grand leaps and bounds in recent years so there simply has not been time for any one to lay claim to level of knowledge.
Excerpt From the Dictionary
Expert – noun
A person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.
Not only has there not been time for that title to be awarded justifiably, but even if one could argue that they have developed enough expertise to legitimately don this label, they would be wrong. Because social media is a general blanket term that encompasses a sea of various outlets, and no one person could be a master of them all at this point. A master of Twitter? Perhaps, but no one would entertain the idea of labeling themselves as a Twitter Expert for their business cards. They opt for the generic title, which in this case, is not merely misleading, but it is inaccurate. A jack of all trades, but a master of none never really hit with me as hard as it did when considering this post. Because I can see that fit here in the social media conversation.
Excerpt From Rob
Social Media Expert – noun
A person who has a reasonably high opinion of themselves and their grasp of an area of social interaction and communication and likes to demonstrate said opinions through fallacious, self applied labels.
And yes, I acknowledge the power users, who have amassed a number of followers or friends or whatever they may be called in their particular circuits that rivals the populations of many towns and cities across the lands, but this does not an expert make. In fact, the argument could be made here that these users would be less experts and more like celebrities. To master social media, a massive network for communication, one has to be able to communicate and interact effectively via these various outlets. But since communication is an interactive, back and forth dialog, these power users are unable to effectively communicate with their massive number of interactees. The quality of the experience is lessened by this one sided approach and ultimately the user is less accessible. Once again, this does not an expert yield.
In a Nutshell
To boil it all down, the fact of the matter is that no one can master social media, because social media is such a fast paced machine reaching out to so many and connecting with them all on some level. And given that we are each different, we will all handle these interactions differently. Meaning, there is no one sure fire method that will resonate with everyone, so in a field that strives to reach out to us all, there will be no expertise established.
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Contribute
Brian McDaniel
August 20, 2009
Great, succinct & smart post about what many of us are thinking. I have stated over and over that if someone tells me they are an expert in anything I am usually done talking to them. By definition it seems to me that if someone claims to be an expert they have ceased to pursue any further education, research or learning about said subject, which is a major fail in my book. I tend to be more apt to listen to and respect someone who has been labeled an expert by another and politely, humbly rebuts the title. I had a friend once who wisely said, “If you have to tell everyone that you’re ‘The Man’, then you’re not!” Thanks for this post.
.-= Brian McDaniel´s last blog ..Links for 2009-08-19 [del.icio.us] =-.
Rob
August 20, 2009
Thanks, Brian. I agree. Most of us never stop learning, and that is the way it should be.
Luis Lopez
August 20, 2009
You are totally right now everybody is telling I am a Social Media or SEO or blogging expert even if they don’t have a website or a real presence on the online world, but this is the world now, is like everyone who know a little about photoshop says is a webdesigner.
That’s the problem with social media and internet I think you can’t really know somebody, as it is because these are not real relationships.
Great article
.-= Luis Lopez´s last blog ..What is RSS and The Subscribe to My RSS Experiment =-.
Matt
August 20, 2009
Great post, good points. Now I need a self proclaimed title…
.-= Matt´s last blog ..CSS: A Timeline =-.
James Ballard
August 21, 2009
Ha! Good Post.
Brandon Cox
August 21, 2009
Rob, you nailed this one. I thought the same thought this morning, and you’ve articulated it far better than I could. Reminds me of King Julian in Madagascar 2, proclaiming himself, a lemur, king of Africa, but nobody’s really paying any attention to him. I like that to being a social media “expert.”
Your post is so well-written, I’m declaring you an expert on the subject!
.-= Brandon Cox´s last blog ..Five Things About Twenty Twitterers =-.
Rob
August 21, 2009
@ Luis – That is very true.
@ Matt – Thanks, man. Make sure it’s a really cool one to make the rest of us jealous.
@ James – Thank you, James.
@ Brandon – Very kind of you, sir. I appreciate it. I like the idea of being an expert about there not being any experts in that field. :D I’ll take it!
Evan Byrne
August 22, 2009
To me being a social media expert means spamming people like me on twitter, myspace, and facebook while at the same time not knowing anything about website design.
The last social media expert I had a conversation with suggested that people should only build websites with table based layouts because CSS based layouts are not SEO friendly. I think that says quite enough.
.-= Evan Byrne´s last blog ..URL Lengthener =-.
Kim H
August 24, 2009
Finally, someone to tell them how it is! Frankly, Ive always seen so-called “experts” as pretentious types that I honestly can’t stand. I don’t need to know how to blog or amass a large amount of twitter followers… As it stands, I have a hard enough time keeping up with twitter.
Funny part about this is that I tweeted it as soon as I read it. I am followed by some of these so-called social media experts. I wonder if they’ll read it, too.
.-= Kim H´s last blog ..WordPress: Two Post Pages =-.
Kaplang
August 25, 2009
well said :) great post
Rob
August 25, 2009
@ Evan – I agree. That’s great about the CSS, it just shows where these folks truly stand.
@ Kim – Thanks, Kim. I wonder if they’ll read it, too. Wonder if it would even have an impact on them?
@ Kaplang – Much appreciated! :)
Matthew
August 27, 2009
I agree…how can anyone claim to be an expert at anything that comes on so quickly. I can believe in “best practices” but that assumes a degree of time to practice and have what works eventually rise to the top. There is something here but I’m not convinced anyone will be able to become an “expert”. Since, as you point out, it is “comprehensive” in nature as soon as the knowledge equalizes technology becomes obsolete. Any pioneer can be first to stake a claim but pioneers always had arrows in their backs.
.-= Matthew´s last blog ..The Search for Meaning =-.
Roberto Blake
August 27, 2009
Truly spot on, I’ve been meaning to address this too. I wouldn’t claim to be a so called expert, but I would point out I can’t stand how ignorant many of the so called SEO’s and Social Media Marketers think and talk about the web and social media sites.
I’ve been trying for the longest make people understand that the goal should be to build relationships and utilize the web to start or contribute to meaningful conversations, share experience, and something of value, not just create link spam.
If you have something interesting to say, or are engaging or entertaining, or even better are providing people with something they need or want, they will find you, they will seek you out, you don’t have to do much or over think, it only requires you to be thoughtful and use good common sense in the first place.
Design for humans, and write for humans, or before you know it the machines will rise up and smite us for abusing them.
.-= Roberto Blake´s last blog ..5 Secrets of On Page SEO =-.
Rob
August 29, 2009
@ Matt – Well said, my friend. Well said, indeed.
@ Roberto – Very well put, Roberto, I like the idea you end on especially. Design for humans, and write for humans… nice.
Roberto Blake
September 7, 2009
@rob thanks for that Rob, ultimately it really is the best way to handle it and it does get results.
.-= Roberto Blake´s last blog ..Interview With Digital Artist Alena Lazareva =-.
Eric
September 14, 2009
Here in Atlanta I’ve seen ads looking for:
Social Media Strategist
Director of PR & Social Media
Conversation Manager
Social Media Coordinator
Sounds like we need some industry standards!
.-= Eric´s last blog ..Photography: The 50 States Project =-.
Loy83
October 10, 2009
It stopped me from taking it for granted. ,
Van
February 6, 2010
Wow, when you put the map together of how many different types of social media and bookmarking, it is amazing. Does anyone use social bookmarking for promotion.
bookmarking demon bonus
March 8, 2010
Social bookmarking is one of the key internet marketing strategies and a crucial promotional tool to gear up your online business. But I think that social bookmarking is a process you just cannot pass over if you desire your business to really start flying, also using a good automatic bookmarking software is definitely the most essential and cost effective way to do it.
Karen
June 12, 2010
There is such a wide array of social bookmarks and sites now. I recently wanted to add my site to a bookmark feed and noticed that there were over 500 social bookmarks available. Amazing.
Ben Mauerberger
June 29, 2010
I regularly use reddit and digg, but i find that digg is the perfect compliment for press releases and seo. There are absolutely loads of social bookmarks now and i think the key is focusing on the right one’s for your business.