Thanks to the professional development industry and the unending production line of social media gurus, we are being bombarded with 100% inaccurate, generalised information.
The higher you go, the nicer the people are
I have lost count of how many ’success books’ I have read, which assured me that the wealthiest people were generally the nicest – that the higher up the ladder you go, the nicer the people become. This is, ladies and gentlemen, total fantasy!
Yes, I have a close, personal friend, who owns one of the UK’s biggest and best known companies and he is a wonderful, kind man. However, I know many other people equally as successful as my friend, who are ignorant and treat their staff (and spouses) like crap. The thing is, people are unique; rich and poor alike. I grew up in a slum and knew tons of people who had nothing – yet were fantastic people.
Social media gurus really understand the value of relationships
Yes, I am sure that some do. But you know what what I see every day? I see social media gurus using their ‘followers’ as free advertising for their latest product / client / speaking engagement. I am a marketing man – that’s what I do. Marketing professionals use social media tools as a part of the marketing mix for their clients and themselves. But then so do the gurus. The key difference? Marketers don’t pretend otherwise.
Your turn
What generalised information have you found to be way too general to be of any real use? Share it here!
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Brilliant post. The social media guru BS is getting real old real quick.
There certainly seems to be the start of a backlash against people calling themselves social media experts. Glad you enjoyed the post Jake.
Ahh the old social media guru question. Sure there are definitely a few out there who “get it” but the vast majority don’t, but the fact remains, they will carve themselves a niche in the market no matter what we say or do.
I know this because its the same everywhere in everything from doctors who have no qualifications but who continue practising to gas men who have never took a health and safety test in their life, have no license but who continue to contract jobs, to bankers who’s greed far exceeds the needs of the common good, every industry in life has this blemish on it so why should we expect any different. (Yes, even Marketers Jim!)
Lets take me and my own services as an for an example. I profess to be a social media consultant. I don’t offer to make people millionaires overnight or have the answer to all their business woes if they just use twitter and I don’t crawl around trying to oversell them on overpriced services or my latest regurgitated book, I simply aim to help them understand what this all means.
There is a demand for it and not everyone can be as social media savy as they would like to be because quite simply it takes time to “get it” but for me, each and every client is unique and so each each and every situation. If I believe that social media is not for them I will tell them so.
So what qualifies me to offer these services?
Well 10 years in the web design industry is probably a good start, so technically I have the knowledge to understand what all these new networks and mediums mean and also the intricacies of integration and adaptation to already existing on line campaigns and systems but outside the tech side I also managed all the clients and sales for the company so I met new people every single day, attended functions and networked my wee Irish socks off, and I loved it.
Then social media came along and for me, it was the best thing since sliced bread as it married my two great passions and skills – finally! I dived in with relish until I was happy that I understood as much as possible about as many things as possible and tested and tested and tested until I was happy that I had reach enough experience and understanding to begin offering social media as a service. Initially it wasn’t my main thing either, it was a value added service on top of my web design clients and search engine optimisation. But demand increased and now I’m able to mange doing it almost exclusively.
Does it make me a guru? Hell no.
Theres still a lot I don’t know and simply keeping up with the developments is proving to be a massive challenge.
I guess I can address your point now Jim and funnily enough I’m in agreement. I wonder who the hell these people are and where they pop out off, shouting about themselves and proclaiming to all and sundry that they are a “guru” of twitter or a “guru” of facebook or such and such (because they have 28000k followers they dont know), and would you like to buy my “beginners guide to twitter? It only 5 dollars!”
Frankly the whole thing annoys the hell outta me, but there’s little I can do about it except hit the unfollow button and continue on my merry way, safe in the knowledge that the effort and commitment I put in and a strong reputation will see me right in the end…
…wont it?
Thanks Justin. That’s got to win the award for the longest comment on the blog.
I was chatting with Chris Brogan about a month ago, where he and I agreed on something; that the term ’social media’ is now toxic.
There’s so many people, like those you mention in your comment, that have been using twitter for a while and now self-proclaim themselves to be experts on building social networks. For those in the field, who DO know what they are doing, it must be very tough convincing people.
Thanks again for the comment Justin.
Over-generalizations that bug me include:
Only young people “get it”
or
That social media is actually new (humans have been social for oh, I don’t know, the last few thousands of years). People use whatever media is at hand to be social
or
Millennials are best a multi-tasking (research shows that no one can multi-task well — I wrote a blog post on that one).
Thanks for the chance to vent!
I’m with you on that Susan!
There’s a ton of inaccurate, age related generalisations. Of course, if enough people believe them, they self-fulfil. Thanks for the feedback!
Good post. So, here’s why you see so much generalization with social media gurus: It’s such a basic, simple subject that they have to repeat the same messages over and over and over and over….
Like Susan said earlier, theres nothing new about social media. Take Chris brogans new book. I bought it and found its just a rehash of the same dozen messages he regurgitates on his blog. Nothing new.
This blog was recommended to me by two different people but for the same reason. They said that you understood social media but were a marketing guy and saw it as a tool and not a religion. refreshing.
Hi Elaine. I have heard that same comment about Chris Brogan’s book a number of times. I imagine that has to happen, if he is blogging about the same subject 7 days a week.
It’s far easier to write about marketing, which has social media as just one of many, many components. Thanks for the comment.
lol.. you speak the truth… look at a lot of the top gaming companies on facebook… they scam the heck out of people to make millions which they admit after and then remove the scams looking good.. it is a very Machiavellian world… it is not who has the best virtues that succeeds but who appears to.. like google, do no evil.. which is laughable because corporations are built to have the moral set that makes them the most profit.. multiple levels keep morals out of the equation.. people wonder why there are still wars.. because a CEO has to answer to the board and needs to show a profit..
Online you can trust very few people.. we are all selling something, trying to feed our families somehow.. nothing is ever free.. I hate the wo4rd free on websites. I feel like I am getting lied to.. cause free to me means give us your creditcard.. you get to use our site for 30 days.. and we will autocharge you when you forget you gave us your creditcard…
do you know my pet peeve online.. ads.. not ads themselves but the fact that they mostly link to crap sites.. how come these smart people don’t realize that people stop clicking on ad interfaces that lead to crap sites..
this is really a vent article.. like the emotion…
You make some really good points there Gebadia!
I love the Google example. Their reputation is just starting to change, as more people question their motives.
Snake oil salesman is my preferred term for a lot of so called social media experts. People should do their research instead of falling for the first few lines they hear. My fave – you cannot measure the ROI when it comes to social media…
I could go on, but I may win longest rant in a comment and I promised to good
Brilliant!
BTW Sarah: Feel free to have a rant here whenever you like – I do!
Thanks for this, Jim. I “had a go” at social media “experts” a month or so back in a blog and apparently upset a few people. There really is no such thing as a social media expert. There are some great commentators with very useful information. That’s not the same thing.
Yes, being nice to people would be the most comfortable way for many of us to get rich, but I have known some completely nasty b******s who have got mega-rich by walking all over people, treating them like dirt.
Some people say fatty food is bad for us. Actually, it depends on the fat, it depends on the age of the person eating it and it depends on the metabolism of the person. This equates to saying everyone should use Twitter or Facebook or Friendfeed or LinkedIn, or should go to BNI. It is rubbish because there is a matter of personal choice and of suitability for a business.
There, I feel better now.
You make come very good points here – excellent insights.
I particularly like the way you draw a distinction between ’social media experts’ and commentators with useful information.
Thanks for the feedback sir!
As usual, Jim, you are spot-on in your assessment of the big picture. There are so many using a smoke and mirrors approach to promoting themselves as experts. I do some work in this area, but am so far from being a “guru” (not that anyone really knows what the qualifications for guru status really are).
I come across so many people who market their social media expertise, yet discovering their own social media footprint is a challenge. Finding those with a solid footprint and who use the tools to engage, rather than solely broadcast, is a greater challenge.
There are a number folks out there from whom I learn every day. They may not necessarily be the people with the largest number of followers or readers, but their insights and ability to challenge my current thinking are of great value.
I just attended a social media conference where, upon introducing myself to others, heard, “Nice to meet you. How many followers do you have?”
Hi Jim,
I was referred here by Mr. Tim Berry’s post on twitter (He is the man behind http://www.bplans.com). I have been researching on the net for the last two months, trying to make sense of “SMO”. The reason for this research is that I work for a web development company and I am in the process of launching a new site. This site is a community site for book lovers and I wanted to reach out to as many passionate book lovers as possible.
My researching has only taught me one thing; There is no single method using wihch one could draw out a SMO strategy for a business or a site. All the sites, blogs, etc that I have seen (over a 100 by now) seem to say more or less the same thing. They only talk about the benefits of SMO, twitter and facebook. A few experts and consultants metion how successfull their clients have been due to their SMO efforts, (no mention of the clients name or their websites). Nobody offers concrete advice or actionable steps to build a strategy. Although, if one follows these experts on twitter, they seem to be tweeting all day, I wonder how they find the time to tweet all day about something or the other?
I have come to the conclusion, that I have to draw my own strategy and execute it myself and not depend on any consultant or expert. It is now also clear to me that SMO is only a small part of a large strategy that will help us promote the site.
Thanks a lot for the post, it is very helpful.
Warm Regards
Jayesh
“I have come to the conclusion, that I have to draw my own strategy and execute it myself and not depend on any consultant or expert.”
Good luck!
Great post Jim!
I’m not a big fan of someone following you who when you follow back, send you a DM with a link to what they are selling! They make a smarmy comment make you regret your decision to follow them. Inevitably I get bored of them sending the same links over and over and with them not engaging with their followers, that I have to unfollow them.
You are so right about the untrue generalization “The higher you go, the nicer the people are”. I have found this to be true in some cases but more often have seen the opposite. It is often the case that the traits needed to rise to the highest levels are usually not related to being nice.
The thing to remember is as you posted, people are unique. Being nice is not something that belongs to any “group”. It is within the person whether the CEO or the Mail Room Clerk.