I’ve written previously about the way some social media gurus are totally clueless when it comes to anything, other than building impressive looking social media followings.
Well, even though influential people like Steve Rubel and Shel Israel are talking about the end of the road for social media consultants / gurus, some things never change. I’m talking about the massive number of clueless social media gurus.
Clueless
I spoke yesterday with a web developer, who told me about an email he received from a well-known social media figure. This person was trying to bag themselves a free website from him and unknowingly, sent the same begging email to a number of developers, who knew each other. The email was forwarded on to me and I assume lots of others. It is one of the most cringe inducing emails I have ever seen.
It was also strangely familiar.
You see, one of that person’s closest social media associates called my office a few months ago, also looking for a freebie. They promised to retweet all my posts and recommend me to their huge online network, if I would “just” give them a free marketing consultation. That’s the exact same offer their friend made in their begging emails to the web developers!
I politely said “no.”
NB: I find it’s common for people whose own time is of little financial value, to assume others give their time away too.
Anyhow, during our call, the guru explained that although they are regularly featured on all kinds of lists and in some top blogs, they earn almost nothing and spend most of their time speaking at conferences, for which they are usually paid little more than expenses, often nothing at all. Commercially, this guru admitted knowing “very little when it comes to strategy!” Their only ability is to know how to build what seems to be a large following, which generates low pay – No pay speaking gigs.
The problem with clueless social media gurus, as opposed to genuine social media experts
The reason this matters, is that those 2 clueless social media gurus have a combined following of over 150,000, who they offer business development advice to; something they have demonstrated very little knowledge of! No wonder we are now seeing social media rock stars moving into salaried jobs.
Before you decide who to listen to when it comes to the development of your business, check them out. That means more than counting how many followers they have. Some of the smartest people in business and social media have modest sized social networks, but extremely successful businesses!