Lee Stacey

To err is human; to follow divine - guest post by @Loudmouthman

Mon, 23 May 2011 10:36:00 -0700

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The worn out and trite epitome of simple marketing suggests that “People buy from People”, although a quick google for this phrase suggests it may not have a single author to its credit.

Rarely has anyone ever said to me “Google tells me this is an excellent product”, instead recommendations come in the form of ‘I’s and ‘they’s and often the qualification of a single show or celebrity to add to its endorsement.

So it came to pass that search engine marketing , a now bloated and waddling exercise in flagulation by phrases, has peaked and the overflow of eager and frankly ill informed <QUOTE>consultants</QUOTE> seek a new revenue stream and opportuntiy.

Enter the Social Media Guru, the Social Media Manager and the Social Media Expert. Consultants and salespersons whose core skill sets is to hear the jingle jangle of the bandwagon passing and leap unabashed onto the jockey box to proclaim their skills and expertise in guidance and direction.

They have a distinctive characteristic and it is one you would do well to look closely for lest P.T.Barnum be proved right yet again. The characteristics to be wary of are often at an inverse to your expectations; Lets look at a few classic examples.

Twitterers

On Twitter they appear with profiles exclaiming ‘Social Media Expert or Guru’ and when you look closely you see that despite Twitter's lifespan they have only been using Twitter for the last few months. Quite possibly they have a large amount of people they follow and few following back. Although their conversations tend to be self promotional they find a network of similar thinking “professionals” with whom they self promote and congratulate. Often they link to their own blogs ( see bloggers ) where they repeat many trite and obvious idioms all the while encouraging you to call their number and get their advice.

Facebook

Indeed as with twitter so with they have just arrived ( how long has Facebook been going ? ) and they have friends ( who suspiciously also attended the same ‘how to be a social media schill’ course ) who also post and ‘like’ and share the same articles and tripe that they keep churning in the hope they gain credibility.

Bloggers

Similar to their twitter histories these experts have blogs which go back only months. quite possibly with incomplete "about me" pages or just as possibly with incomplete blogs created as tacked on afterthoughts to their own website, which no doubt has a 20 second Flash Splash page intro, possibly with kittens. Rarely do you see any examples of ‘media’ usage beyond the desire to overpopulate their sidebars with plugin after plugin after plugin.

And thats about it.

You are unlikely to see these ‘Social Media’ experts with posterous accounts running alongside their projects or flickr and instagram accounts highlighting conferences, tweetups and events they have experienced. You wont see them curating and collating content in Youtube or Vimeo and as for podcasts or Audioboos? Suffice to say you might start seeing them from today since they have seen this post but until then it simply has not occured to them to use and promote these tools for themselves or their clients.

Put simply these "bandwagon jumpers" these gurus, experts and ‘professionals’ are not going to help your business or your projects. They do not know how to take risks. They do not know how to go out and explore the internet and live on the frontiers of change and live as the outriders of opportunity. They are sharks and buzzards feeding only where the shoals and masses congregate and picking at the flesh of business the chunks they can get away with.

Do not rely on them to take you places where your customers maybe or for them to climb the mountains of competition to view ahead into new pastures for your business.

For more on the humanity of good social media take a listen to the first half of 'Social Media White Noise' Episode #62 Cloud Trouble where Nik Butler rants about the tendency of these experts to use tools over experience to appear professional.

About the author

Nik Butler (@Loudmouthman) was on twitter in 2006 and has been blogging since 2004. He makes no claims to being an expert, guru or professional but likes to be known as 'A Digital Roadie'. He has tremendous expertise in getting things done and has the client testimonial page to prove it.

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