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Don't Use the "E" Word
As part of an intensive online debate about social media marketing, professional marketers are wrangling and quibbling over what constitutes a social media expert and who should rightly call themselves one. Some marketers believe it is unseemly to call oneself an expert at all, and that one should never presume to be an expert.
Says Mary Beth Harte of Harte Communications:
"Even with 15 years of deep marketing (all the 4Ps of marketing, not just communications) experience and over seven years of teaching as an adjunct marketing & PR professor, I am not expert. Why? Because in my mind if I become an expert I fear that I will have stopped learning. And that is something I never want to happen. Perhaps that just my own personal issue… I fear complacency like the plague."
Michelle Tripp agrees with Harte, saying, "You're so right: People referring to themselves as 'expert' marks the end of their learning. That humility is what's missing today in social media and marketing."
Says Karin Oliver-Kreft:
"Personally, I just can't stand the word. I've worked with people who've been in marketing for 20 + years and I still wouldn't call them an expert. And I've worked with savants who have been doing something less than a year and have demonstrated a proficiency that I would inherently trust."
Says Ken Wheaton:
"You can always use the network news definition. An 'expert' is anyone willing to go on TV and shout about something."
Says Michael Gray:
"Recent books like "Outliers" (by Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point") have shown that it takes about 10,000 hours to develop a real expertise in an area, some studies have shown it takes about 10 years."
Some marketers see the argument over whether one should call oneself an expert as much ado about very little. Says Ken Burbary, "I think the community inside the fishbowl spends far too much time debating this topic."
Likewise, says Greg Verdino of Crayon:
"I've been following the debate and gritting my teeth, holding back on adding my two cents. But, generally speaking, my question is "who cares?" Seriously. Who cares what defines social media expertise? And why are we even devoting digital ink to answering that question?"
Says Sarah Fowler:
"This is reminding me of the discussion in Pride & Prejudice of what constitutes 'an accomplished woman,' lol."
How Can You Tell a Social Media Expert?
There are no standards for social media expertise, and marketers cannot agree on what constitutes a social media expert. Some believe a social media expert must have a formal market background and be able to incorporate social media into a rigorous marketing discipline that includes a formal plan and measurement.
Mary Beth Harte believes one must be a disciple of Philip Kotler, well-known author on marketing, to qualify as a social media expert. Says Harte:
"As marketers, we look at Philip Kotler as a marketing expert, a title rightly deserved. He has worked for decades on analyzing and implementing highly strategic and complicated marketing programs. (BTW, if you just had to Google Kotler, don't ever called yourself a 'social media marketing' expert' in my presence, okay? Thanks in advance.)"
B.L. Ochman believes a track record is what separates a real expert from a faux expert. "How many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools?" she asks. "I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records."
Like Harte, Ochman believes that professional experience in digital marketing can be extended to social media marketing:
"A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing."
Steve Goldner, aka Social Steve, also advocates a formal marketing campaign structure:
"The tool to get there is social media, but organizations cannot just jump into social media without some upfront work. The upfront work is really traditional marketing…..Know who you are….Define the communication or campaign objective….Define your communication plan."
Benjamin Ellis of Redcatco, however, advises caution in embracing a formulaic social media strategy:
Having a "social media strategy" is all very well, but it often results in "bolt on" activity, with little return, and little benefit towards the strategic direction of the business. "Using social media strategically" is something different. Picking points of engagement, within the company's strategic operations, when the tools will provide the best return. Social media is more than "one" thing. It is multifaceted and multi-skilled.
Brian Solis of FutureWorks is skeptical of those billed as prominent social media experts and their advice. He describes a social media Webinar in which his wife, the person in charge of New Media at her company, found the helpfulness of social media experts less than advertised:
"She recently participated in a Webinar that advertised how to effectively manage and measure Twitter on behalf of her company. The Webinar featured some of the most visible and notable Twitter experts online today. While their advice was accurate and relevant, she left unfulfilled, uniformed and worse, further confused. The answers to her questions were unrealistic, generic, impractical, unsustainable, and fundamentally flawed for the business world. Worse, she also walked away from the experience with more questions and less direction. Unfortunately, she's not alone."
Jeremiah Owyang, who says that "understanding how companies staff, organize, and prepare for social media/computing is one of my top interests personally and professionally," has compiled a list of social media strategists who are dedicated to full-time social media marketing at large corporations.
While experts fill these positions now, says Owyang, "It's important to note, that in the end, these skills (the ability to communicate online) will disperse and grow to many employees. Generation Y comes to us with these abilities built in as a 'digital natives.' "
Owyang is in the camp that believes that social media marketers should "create actionable programs that generate leads, increase sales, decrease support costs, or make innovation more efficient." Social media programs, he says, should provide measureable results and demonstrate return on investment.
On the other end of the spectrum is Justin Kownacki, who on his Café Witness blog asks, "Why be spoon-fed common sense?" Says Kownacki:
"There's nothing involved in social media that isn't already obvious to the average person. There's nothing awe-inspiring about aggregating followers, spreading a message or spurring individuals to action. We like to think there is but, truth be told, humans have been doing that since the Stone Age. And, in that sense: what makes one of us more of an 'expert' at communicating than others?"
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