Eating My Words: The 9 Types of Social Media Experts

I recently cautioned that you should "Beware of Experts," saying, "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's excellent article The 9 Types of "Social Media Experts challenged me to expand my definition of an expert.  Rohit 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!

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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

Why Inbound Marketing is a Bad Idea for Leprechauns

Ciao for now!

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Courtesy of HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

In Plain English: Social Media for Business

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!

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Produced by Sachi and Lee LeFever of Common Craft.

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

Why Businesses Should Care About Social Media

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!

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Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

Beware of Experts

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!

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

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

Denny's: Half-Baked

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!

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Let's Twitter: @WanderNot

About Brand(ish) Blog

 

 

Brand(ish) Explores the Art of Corporate Branding in the Era of Social Media

A Paradigm-Shifting Toolset

In some respects, social media is just another set of marketing and branding tools—but it’s a paradigm-shifting toolset. It’s creating a climate of unprecedented demand for transparency and authenticity in corporate marketing and communications.

So it has everyone “all shook up,” as Elvis would say.

What I Bring to the Party

I’m a writer and communications crackerjack, so I get marketing and PR and advertising. And I get all the tools they use—including social media. Most importantly, I get how all those tools fit together to deliver specific results.

On Brand(ish) I talk about all these things. And I particularly focus on social media, because it’s a shiny new toolset that companies have a lot of questions about. As with all new things, there’s a lot of hype around social media. It’s easy to get distracted and lose sight of the larger strategic picture.

It's All About Strategy

Embracing strategy as the cornerstone of all successful marketing and communications, Brand(ish) takes the pulse of the prevailing zeitgeist. It pokes the bear of conventional wisdom, evaluates new tools, and highlights people who are doing interesting things with them. We look at which companies are succeeding with social media, which ones aren’t, and why.

Always asking, How does this fit with larger strategic objectives?

And always answering with a modicum of wit and a minimum of jargon. Awesome sauce. ;)

Thanks for stopping by! Before you leave, why don't you join the conversation?

 

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

Let's Twitter: @WanderNot