|
Page 3 of 3
Experience Gap
A study by MarketingSherpa called "Social Media Marketing and PR" found that a "Majority of Marketers Believe No Experience Is Needed to be a Social Media Expert." Putting your faith and trust in these inexperienced experts can be dangerous, warns MarketingSherpa.
According to the study:
"Two-thirds of marketers who work for organizations that have not used any form of social media marketing or PR consider themselves "very knowledgeable" or "somewhat knowledgeable" about this emerging strategy. Their overconfidence in unproven ability can doom social media initiatives to failure."
When making the initial jump into social media, said MarketingShirpa,"many organizations start by delegating responsibility to the first staff person they find with a profile on Facebook or LinkedIn since very few people have any level of practical experience in this new strategy. The result is usually a marketing program pre-destined to failure."
Marketing professionals generally agree with these findings. Says Patricio Robles on her eConsultancy blog:
"Right now, many of the people being put in charge of social media marketing campaigns don't have any formal training or experience in marketing. This is not an insult; these people are often smart, practical and well-intentioned. But that doesn't make them good marketers."
Says Mark Evans on his blog:
"There's no lack of people positioning themselves as strategists and consultants when, in fact, they're really "enthusiasts" who love using the tools but have little or no experience actually applying them to achieve business objectives."
Alex Hillman warns against consultants who advise using a single tool like Twitter:
"Now, don't get me wrong, I love Twitter…But if your consultant is convinced that simply putting your brand on Twitter is going to change the future of your company, show them the door. Twitter, and any other social media tool, needs to be used in conjunction with other tools, and the lot of them need to be used simultaneously."
Brian Solis warns against social media advisors that provide a large laundry list of tools:
"I recently was referred to a post from Focus Research that insinuated that businesses needed to engage in 50 social networks in order to stay in business, "50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence on."
This is simply foolish and irresponsible. Articles such as this demonstrate the lack of social mastery or expertise that is so critical to truly helping businesses connect with customers on the social web."
Using the biblical seven deadly sins as a template, James Clark offers a guide called "The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media." Of them all, he says, "The sin of greed just might be the most reviled and hated of all the sins in social media." Clark puts the greedy in two camps: "fakes and flacks." Fakes, he explains, "blatantly attempt to hijack social media platforms for personal, employer or corporate gain."Flacks, he says, are coordinated teams that "premeditate their actions as part of a campaign to go out and fill social media networks and blogs with comments."
Interestingly, Clark describes himself as "a social media expert and cofounding partner of Room 214, a social media and word of mouth marketing agency."
Greg Verdino has no problem with employing social media experts or non-experts. He believes a social media campaign just has to work:
"Your clients or employers probably don't want to work with a "social media expert." And they almost certainly don't want to be social media experts themselves. They just want to figure out if, when, where and how they might be able to use social media to accomplish the things they set out to accomplish."
Similarly, says Andrew Sauter on his SMO Expert blog:
"At the end of the day, a social media campaign comes down to labor and time. Someone, whether it is a social media agency, freelancer, or consultant needs to be involved in the daily conversations that revolve around your company. The only real barrier to entry to this role is knowledge of social media and basic working knowledge of planning a marketing campaign."
Bottom Line
The number of those calling themselves social media experts -and offering webinars, seminars, tips, pointers, programs, and sure-fire success- is staggering and perplexing. For companies looking for help in navigating the social media waters, it is hard to tell whose advice is best. As we've seen, the advice and strategies of those who are considered esteemed experts can be just as inadequate as the disesteemed novices.
Meanwhile, consultants and established marketing and PR agencies are jostling to establish primacy as social media experts. With pressure on them to secure clients by providing social media expertise, many are just gearing up and hiring people to fill these roles, often exaggerating their ability to deliver results.
How does one tell a true social media expert from a faux expert? Answer: You can't very easily.
Even seasoned marketers, with years of experience running formal marketing campaigns, may have little or no feel for how to leverage social media successfully.
In truth, anyone who knows more than you do about social media can provide some level of help. And it's not that difficult to prescribe a formula and mold your effort to fit it. However, those with the ability to come up with what is needed to achieve truly remarkable marketing results-i.e., brilliant marketing ideas-are not so easily found or recognized.
As advertising great George Lois said, "The Big Idea should be reserved for clients of imagination and chutzpah-who can recognize talent and are determined to milk that talent to the limit."
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.
|
