I am tired of talking about how social media experts are ruining everything that is good and pure about social networking.
I mean, of course they are.
There are a million BS professions out there that are ruining something:
- Reality TV producers
- Televangelists
- Romance novelists
- Pop music artists
- Paparazzi
Yes, these people bring down their entire broad industries through shoddy work, scummy tactics and rampant backstabbing.
What’s the real problem with all of these people though?
Who cares about all of this? Focus on being useful and your natural platforms will come to light.
Someone is paying them!
Some jerk is paying that social media guru (who is giving you blog posts like “Ten tips to shoot to the top of Digg”) either on a contract or a full time gig to keep sustaining them in their practice. Or they are unemployed and just saying they are an expert until they find a real gig.
So if you want to know why these folks keep persisting, it is because someone is paying their mortgage and light bills. People don’t do this crap for free for too long.
You want to know the real deal?
If you want to be useful and successful in social media, you have to be useful and successful in society. That means contributing useful things to your community. That means not doing shady things as a means to work your way into the hearts and minds of your audience. That means creating useful ideas and products that don’t require automated Digg submitters, blackhat SEO and crappy Twitter accounts.
* * * * *
Most of all, it is about educating and involving yourself with social media. That’s why companies who get it don’t care about social media experts. When they get it, they end up caring less about social media “rockstars” and more about people who are willing to talk to their former, current and future customers in a way that makes sense and is authentic.
So while it is easy to get stuck in the trap of complaining about social media gurus, let’s do the hard thing and just make them go away by stopping their cash supply. That’s the hard way. Any comparison to cockroaches is purely coincidental too.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Add the ‘mature adult entertainment industry’ to your list of ruination.
Oh snap, now I have to cancel my business cards that say SOCIAL MEDIA GURU on them. Thanks for ruining my business model, chumpstah.
I think we’re all tired of hearing about “social media gurus,” and Jason Falls actually had a great post about this today –> http://bit.ly/38ZZ2 but at the same time I do understand why people want these Charlatans called out.
Often times the people paying these consultants are doing so because they don’t necessarily know any better. Will they know when they don’t get results and not do it in the future? Yes… But it doesn’t mean they should get duped the first time does it?
I do feel that a few people ruin it for the rest of us but that isn’t a reason to make such a broad generalization. In some aspects they can ruin things by over promoting themselves in the process but there needs to be an expert in every industry. Using blackhat SEO and spamming people will obviously get you flagged quickly and people will learn to stay away from them.
Social media guru are like social spammers to me, no offense guys. There is just no control who could do it.
Hi Lance,
You may find my website interesting as it deals with inbound marketing per say.
cheers
Johann
{ 1 trackback }