Peter Shankman’s post, “I Will Never Hire a ‘Social Media Expert,’ and Neither Should You”, has been making waves in the internet marketing world in the past few days. There’s a good reason for that, even though what he’s saying has been said before. In a time where even my (basically computer illiterate) mother knows that social media can do amazing things for companies, there’s enormous pressure on marketing departments and staff to find a way to monetize that. Corporate profits may be up, but that doesn’t mean budgets have opened up much. The lure of “free marketing” through things like Facebook fan pages and Twitter is stronger than ever when your budget is tight.

Social media is an incredibly powerful thing with deep reserves of potential. There are most definitely people out there who have serious skills in utilizing it effectively to bring in revenue, strengthen brands, and respond to customers with agility. What so many people don’t seem to get is that those people aren’t social media experts – they’re marketing experts who use social media as one of their vehicles. If they weren’t marketing experts in the first place, they wouldn’t be able to do a thing with social media. It takes time, effort, failure, learning from mistakes and successes, and more effort to be an expert.

I’m not saying that people who say they’re Social Media Experts are malicious. Some are. Most of them are marketing people making themselves and their skillset more accessible to the people looking for it. Heck, I’ve been called one (which is funny to me), though it’s not a title I’d give myself. Do you need a social media expert as part of your marketing team? Maybe. But they had darn well better be a partner and advocate of the larger marketing strategy. How can they be effective if they aren’t on board with the vision, the message, the voice, and customer service? They absolutely must be honest about what to expect. A Facebook fan page will not be your salvation. Meeting up with your customers where they are and in ways that engage them will do wonders. That right there? That is a truly valuable asset to the team.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 at 12:21 pm and is filed under seo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.