I recently cautioned readers to "Beware of Experts," with the bold assertion that "There’s no such thing as a 'social media expert.' It’s too new, too big, and changing too rapidly for anyone to know everything about all social media."

My underlying belief, obviously, is that "expert" is the same thing as All-Knowing Master of the Social Media Universe.

Rohit Bhargava challenged me to expand my definition of an expert in his excellent article The 9 Types of "Social Media Experts." He rightly points out that the fake-expert everyone hates is The Pretender, and then proceeds to astutely parse eight types of social media professionals (some of which will surely be on future lists of "Hot Jobs You Wish You Had"). He adds that much of the confusion around the expertise issue is that "many people who could be great at certain roles are simply trying to fill the wrong role."

This is a great point: since social media is not a fad, but a a paradigm-shifting toolset, we marketing/advertising/PR types are expanding our communication skill sets to encompass the new media. And of course, our social media groove is an extension of the strengths we already possess in legacy marketing and media. Different people are good at different things.

Which really clarifies things for companies trying to figure out how to get their social media raft in the river. For most companies, the divide between legacy media and social media isn't as wide as they think. It's a gap, not a canyon. And the bridge between the two is strategic thinking: first you decide what you want to achieve, then you aim the right skill set at it. Rohit's nine skill sets are:

1. The Pretender. I think of this person as a social media hobbyist. They're on Facebook and Twitter, maybe LinkedIn, but they have few connections and little first-hand knowledge. For example, they claim blogging expertise, but their own blog is on a free platform.
2. The Trainer/Teacher. Someone who can teach others anything is worth their weight in gold. They don't merely convey the mechanics of how to use certain tools, they inspire you to envision the possibilities.
3. The Professional Speaker. In my opinion, many social media speakers don't seem particularly adept with social media tools. But Rohit makes the point that these folks "often [create] inspiration and excitement about social media as a whole." In that sense, they're sort of big-picture teachers, visionaries with a giant megaphone.
4.  The Content Curator. Rohit believes that "content curators will be among one of the most important social media jobs of the future." As editors passionate about a specific topic, he foresees curators as "the ones that can help us make sense of the exploding amount of content online. The almighty search algorithm won't be enough."
5. The Event Organizer. From tweetups to meetups to national conferences, organizers bring the digital universe into the analog world where virtual relationships become real.
6. The Community Manager. An elusive skill set that demands equal fluency with "real conversations in real time and reacting to those conversations transparently." Elusive maybe, but definitely vital, and potentially the hub of any organization's social media presence.
7. The Content Creator. Great at writing blog posts, sharing thoughts on Twitter, and producing video. When you need original content to engage an audience, these folks are indispensable.
8. The Marketing Strategist. People who "solve a real business problem with a smart plan for using social media, and [are] entirely capable of admitting which business problems social media may not be the best solution for."
9. The Designer/Builder. I believe a more descriptive term would be "implementers." These are the folks who get it done—without them, the most brilliant strategies are useless.

Rohit goes into greater detail about the different types, and the reader comments are also interesting. I highly recommend reading his article.

Ciao for now!

________________________

Many thanks to Terry Crosby of Terry Crosby Social Media Training for putting this on my radar!

Photo credit: ...oops? by jasmeet via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

ME = Unplugged. Offline.

BACK ON MONDAY, 3/29. 

(Just taking some time | To finish my rhyme.)

Ciao for now!

________________________

Photo credit: Red, Unplugged by My Melting Brain via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

Ciao for now!

________________________

Courtesy of HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

This is a simple story of the forces that shape social media. 

Using the example of an ice cream maker, this brief and charming video succinctly explains the value proposition of social media for businesses.

Informative and tasty. 

This video gives you a sense of the primary differences between social media and legacy media: 

• People rely on the ratings and recommendations of their peers in making purchasing decisions.
• People who enjoy a product play a role in determining what is findable and popular.

It also demonstrates the benefits of social media both to companies and to their customers. It's easy to see how social media (inbound marketing) is a powerful influencer when combined with legacy media (outbound marketing).

Ciao for now!

________________________

Produced by Sachi and Lee LeFever of Common Craft.

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

One of the primary barriers to entry for businesses trying to figure out social media is that they aren't clear on how it can help them.

There are so many social media outlets—which ones should you use, how should you use them, and what kinds of results should you expect? So many questions!

Here's a handy-dandy guide to the social media landscape, courtesy of CMO.com.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF

I like this because it tells you how to leverage the most popular social tools to support specific branding goals such as:

• customer communication

• brand exposure

• driving website traffic

• SEO

This is a terrific resource to pass around and share with your colleagues.

Ciao for now—

________________________

Thanks to Drew McLellan of McLellan Marketing Group and to Stephanie Quilao for putting this on my radar!

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

If comparing something to sex doesn’t make it more interesting, then we’re not doing it right. Take branding, for instance. Here are the three most important ways that branding is like sex.

#1: It’s simultaneously ubiquitous and mysterious. Like sex, branding is everywhere. And like sex, we’re all convinced that branding is what sells. Do a simple Amazon search on “branding” and you get 50,840 results. Whether you’re one of the “dummies” or a Harvard Business School grad, you could spend the rest of your life reading up on Effective Branding, Simple Branding, Personal Branding, Corporate Branding, Emotional Branding and Digital Branding, just for starters.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: Never was so much written by so many and understood by so few. Yet despite all this information, the currents and eddies of attraction between products and buyers remain as elusive as the tendrils of desire between individuals.

#2: Everyone thinks they do it better and more often than they actually do. Five years ago, just having a website was a big deal. Now a website is just the beginning. We’re also Twittering, blogging, Facebooking, MySpace-ing and YouTube-ing. In other words, there are lots of opportunities to make some noise, but very little real communication.

Much of the clamor in the marketplace is companies talking to themselves. Putting a logo or company name everywhere isn’t branding, it’s marketing. Marketing doesn’t become branding until it evolves into a meaningful conversation between you and your customers. Like sex, talking is also something you can do alone, but it’s more fun with other people.

#3: Mad skills are great, but nothing trumps true love. You can’t fake passion for very long. And you certainly can’t fake a genuine investment in your customers’ happiness. All beloved brands share a common trait: the value they bring to their customers’ lives exceeds the value of the particular product or service they offer. That value may be convenience, glamour, humor, beauty, or something else. And it’s that intangible enhancement in quality-of-life that creates nearly unbreakable brand loyalty.

So what’s the bottom line here? First, comparing branding to sex actually does make branding more interesting (surprise!).

Second, like love, successful branding transcends the sum of its parts to become something greater.

And third, an Amazon search on “sex” yields over a half-million results, with a recommendation for “Amazon’s Madonna Store” highlighted right at the top of the page.

Now that’s some powerful branding.

Ciao for now!

________________________

Photo credits: Free Textures Set by Saul Landell via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

This two-minute, in-your-face video by timetogetsocial gives ten reasons why social media should be on the corporate communications radar.

[Warning: Turn down the volume on your computer before clicking "play."]

To summarize:

#1:  Social media now beats porn and personal email as the #1 online activity. (Nielsen Wire)

#2:  Two-thirds of everyone who uses the Internet uses social media. (Nielsen)

#3:  Social networks now account for 10% of all Internet time. (Nielsen)

#4:  The Internet is the most influential source of information for purchasing decisions. (Weber Shandwick Inline Research)

#5:  Your customers are on the social Web. (Business Week)

#6:  The next 3 billion consumers will access the Internet from a mobile device, creating the "super-fresh" Web which will force brands to engage with their customers.

#7:  If Facebook were a country it would be bigger than the USA, indeed the third-largest in the world. It is on target for a half-billion users by December 2010.

#8:  Twitter is on track for one billion users by 2012.

#9:  One-way (outbound) marketing is over.

#10:  Social media is mostly free. All it costs is time.

Does this mean that your company should be using social media? Not necessarily. Many factors play into that decision, including your marketing goals, who your customers are, and what the rest of your communications plan looks like.

But it does mean that whether you love it or hate it, social media has permanently revolutionized the marketing paradigm. And it means that you're going to need to make deliberate, well-informed decisions about if—and how—to blend social media into the rest of your advertising and communications mix.

Ciao for now!

 ________________________

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

OK, this is a tricky thing since I am, myself, an expert in marketing communications. I understand the irony here. But it needs to be said, so I’m planting a flag—beware of experts.

Here’s why: Experts tend to be very attached to the past. Their very expertise lies in the tried-and-true. As such, experts are frequently the least capable of judging and implementing new ideas. They tend to be more comfortable making incremental changes to old ideas, rather than embracing a shifting paradigm. They also tend to explore new ideas in the context of entrenched assumptions, so they often "don't know what they don't know."

The only thing trickier than being an expert of the tried-and-true is being an expert of the untried-and-brand-new. Which brings us to newly minted “social media experts.”

There’s no such thing as a “social media expert.” It’s too new, too big, and changing too rapidly for anyone to know everything about all social media. The most knowledgeable people approach it with a “learner’s mind” every single day.

Even highly experienced people with specialized expertise in a specific medium—such as Facebook—work daily to stay on top of it. These people are rare, and if you make a strategic decision to be on Facebook, for example, you should definitely hire them to maximize your presence on Facebook. But don’t expect them to be equally expert in Twitter, Ning or LinkedIn.

And last, but not least:  No expert is a one-size-fits-all solution. No one—including me—is right for every project and every company. Expertise aside, there are many intangibles that make someone a good fit with your company’s culture and its goals. At the end of the day, your own instincts outweigh anyone else’s “expertise.”

 Ciao for now!

 ________________________

Photo credit: “is Social Media Expert” by Martin Ringlein via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

In marketing, there are few things worse than almost getting it right.

If you’re a Denny’s denizen, you’ve probably ordered from a menu whose back cover invites you to “Join the conversation!” and directs you to its website, its Facebook page and its Twitter account. Impressive! Who knew Denny’s was so cutting edge?

Unfortunately, the Twitter address—twitter.com/dennys—belongs to a Taiwanese man named Dennys Hsieh. 

Filter Creative Group handles Denny’s social media initiatives, and they actually do a terrific job. Denny’s has a robust Facebook page with nearly 33,000 fans and two Twitter accounts: @DennysGrandSlam (for early birds) and @DennysAllnightr (for normal people). Both accounts have thousands of followers and do a good job of engagement, customer service and promotional marketing.

Mistakes happen. But it’s odd that such a “connected” company would ignore the error. The incorrect menus were distributed to 1,500 Denny’s locations last October and Matthew Petro called the error in November. Yet Denny’s hasn’t so much as put an explanatory note next to the Twitter link on their website.

It looks like their mistake might cost them. 

Twitter has a policy that after six months of inactivity an account may be deemed inactive and released to another party. Dennys Hsieh stopped posting updates last July and Denny’s has now petitioned Twitter to have the account reassigned to them. Dennys Hsieh then began posting again on February 19^th, including a link to CNET’s excellent report on the same date.

If only someone had fact-checked the menu. You don’t need your spidey senses to detect the brewing soap opera that’s bound to keep Twittizens entertained in coming weeks.

Ciao for now!

________________________

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

These days, when Google is starting to look a lot like Microsoft in its quest for total world domination—CNBC’s Inside the Mind of Google makes the search giant’s happy logo seem a bit disingenuous—this ad reconnects us to the beauty and purity of Google’s original value proposition.

So wonderful! (Was that a tear I saw in the corner of your eye?)

This is a great example of what can happen when you approach legacy media from a social media mindset. If you connect with what your customers really want from your company and your product, social media will take it viral.

And that’s the kind of reach and frequency that no amount of ad dollars can buy you.

Ciao for now!

________________________

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot