How Not To Be A Social Media Expert Anymore

  By Tac Anderson | November 30, 2011 - 5:26 am | ,

I’ve always taken a certain level of pride in always being an enigma at any place I worked. I don’t like to be categorized or pigeon holed. Because of that, this last year presented a bit of a problem for me. I have worked very hard to establish myself as an expert in the emerging field of social media. And I’ve benefited greatly from that positioning. But every time I hear someone introduce me as a “Social Media Expert” a little piece of my soul dies. (Okay, that only really happens when they call me a Social Media Guru.) I know I’m not alone in this sentiment. Anyone who really enjoys being labeled a social media expert, probably really isn’t one.

The Expert Problem

The problem with being the social media expert in your organizations is that it implies social media is one person’s job. “Social media? Yeah, we’ve got a person that does that.” I firmly believe that social media is everyone’s job and will eventually be incorporated into every job in one way or another.

Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) and Altimeter came out with a report earlier this year about the two career paths of the social media strategist. In it Jeremiah points out that the “social media expert” aka the Social Media Strategist, will either be relegated to the social media help desk or will reach escape velocity and lead scalable social business programs. Being a social media strategist is a tough job and it’s not something that one group or even one team should own in isolation. Additionally I believe that you either need to specialize, much like SEOs or direct marketing specialists do or you need to take it up a level and integrate social media at a strategic business level.

But even within these specific applications I believe that the role of the social media strategist will go away. Depending on your organization you will either be co-opted into a team that does owned or earned marketing or you’ll need to become a business or marketing strategist. Either way, you won’t be a social media strategist.

The Social Media Expert Isn’t Dead…Yet

The role of the social media expert will be around for a while. But I’m not waiting around for its last breath. I’ve already started to up level my role. My current job title to VP of Digital Strategies, but  my job is as much internal business strategy as it is digital marketing strategy. I now work with clients on developing business strategy and they sometimes have nothing to with digital, let alone social media.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t still use social media or leverage the strengths of social networks and the various tools you’ve been using, but you need to change the vocabulary and the point of the conversations.

It’s no longer about launching Twitter accounts or Facebook pages, it’s about communicating with specific audiences to drive measurable business value. That audience is most likely on Twitter or Facebook but using those are the tactics not the objective.

You’re no longer talking about social media strategies but instead you need to talk about marketing strategies. Each channel may still have it’s own strategy, like social media, advertising, media outreach and events, but they all work together not in isolation.

And we need to stop talking about conversations and engaging and start talking about new business strategies that are built on an open culture with a focus on collaboration.

We need to just stop talking about social media and just starting building it into everything we do. Social media is now as pervasive as the Internet itself. Let’s quit acting like we’re so surprised to be here and get on with it.

About Tac Anderson

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.
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  • http://twitter.com/pushingsocial Stan Smith

    I think that the pendulum on the word “expert” has swung too far in the wrong direction.  We can all agree that we detest con-artists, bullshitters, and opportunists that co-opt “expert” to make a quick buck.  These people come and go.  However, this doesn’t mean that thoughtful people, with practical, real-world expertise, and hours invested in diligent study should shy away from allowing themselves to be referred to as an expert.  

    What we are missing here is that clients WANT real experts.  Just like, I want a pediatrician that isn’t afraid too say they are the best in the field. Or an airline pilot that can assure me that he can land tons aluminum in a driving snow storm, or coach that is willing to bet it all on his wisdom and experience. Tac, I want the real experts in social media to step up and start challenging the fly-by-night personal branding grandstanders. We will all be much better off.

  • http://twitter.com/urbanhoustonian Michael Coppens

    I’ve always felt the experts ultimate failure would come from their belief that social media is a new game with new rules. Successful marketers are taking tried and true concepts from their “old school” training to drive real innovation and new conversations.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    I totally understand and, since this was a blog, I was being a bit provocative, but I believe the need for an expert in social media will go away (over the course of years), because companies would rather hire someone who understands social media, AND all the other marketing channels. 

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    I agree that really successful marketers need to understand the old as well as the new. The innovation happens when you know what to keep and what to get rid of. The problem with many traditional marketers is they cling to their favorite “old school” approaches and fail to recognize that a lot has changed, but not everything. Yes, the fundamentals are still true, the approach and the tactics have to be adjusted (not thrown out). 

  • http://twitter.com/urbanhoustonian Michael Coppens

    I don’t think marketing has been this fun and exciting since P.T. Barnum. I’m looking forward to seeing where this ride leads us!

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    Absolutely. Truer words have never been spoken. 

  • http://www.meshworkmarketing.com Douglas Metzgar

    Spot on. Two things: Today I’m seeing SM as a requirement/component for jobs more often, just like having a Bachelor’s degree (sometimes requiring 7-10 years). I still think there’s still a serious lack of SM expertise out there (listening, engaging, measuring) at the SMB level, but that’ll catch up soon enough. Like you, I can’t stand “expert” or “guru” since I do a whole hell of a lot more than SM (I’m being typecast and I’m not just a beautiful face. I have depth!!). People still think SM’s a silver bullet. It’s is a tactic, a tool, one piece of the solution (if applicable). In a recent discussion with a colleague and prospective client, he opened with, “Hey, what’s next in social media?” I had to back up the conversation. “Before talking social media, let’s talk about your pain points and strategy. What are you trying to solve?” In the end, it wasn’t about SM as the centerpiece. The solution was revisiting his overall marketing plan, output quality and focusing on improving customer service. Social media was still a component, but with a focus on nurturing his existing and large SM community–not finding a new shiny tool to play with.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    You’re right Doug,  the problem I have with being labeled a social media expert isn’t that I care if I’m recognized for my experience but that social media isn’t all that I’m good at and only part of what I do. Social media has been the place where all the action has been and all the disruption, and I genuinely love the space, but it’s not all I do. 

  • http://twitter.com/pushingsocial Stan Smith

    You know, I think that Social will become dominant form of marketing and advertising.  So Social Strategists like yourself will be handed the reigns to general marketing strategy.  Social’s 800 million person audience, sophisticated targeting, immediate feedback, and viral potential is too valuable to give to the mid-level person stuck in the corner cubicle.  

    Plus, medium-experts are a hardy lot.  There are still cable-buy experts, direct mail experts, out-of-home experts, guerilla marketing experts, and radio experts still happily roaming the halls of large agencies.  

    What say you? :)

  • http://twitter.com/pushingsocial Stan Smith

    Hey Doug,
    I’m not the starry-eyed idealist type but… I believe that Social is the next evolutionary step for marketing.  Frankly I would be more worried if I had a general media title or marketing strategist title.  With only 14% of people trusting general advertising and 78% trusting peer recommendation then the tsunami is going to hit the rank-and-file marketers and force Social Experts to step up and lead the charge.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    Exactly my point, and when social media is the dominant form, it will just be called Marketing. But you’re right, there will be niche specialists like there are still SEO, email marketeers, etc.

    This previous post covers that: What’s Next In Social Media? http://www.newcommbiz.com/whats-next-in-social-media/ 

  • http://www.meshworkmarketing.com Douglas Metzgar

    Thanks Stan. You’re right that SM is the next step. Like you, if I was a marketer who didn’t play in SM/new media today, I’d be worried. SM helps me talk about the entire marketing strategy vs. “Um, yeah, so you need a website?” But back to the silver bullet — I think some customers are misled into thinking that SM is their only strategy to market their business. They still need to focus on quality, pricing, customer service, branding, etc.

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  • http://www.adigaskell.org/blog Adi

    Hi Tac, you’re spot on with this post.  I wrote a while back about community management skills becoming increasingly essential parts of the general management toolkit.  I mean remote working is on the up, which mixed with globalisation means you’re often managing people digitally rather than face to face.  There’s been a tonne of research on intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation, with the conclusion being that the traditional carrot and stick approach of the last 100 years really doesn’t work any more.  You need to appeal to someone’s inner motivations to get them to follow you.  We will also increasingly see the workplace refocused around outputs rather than inputs, with managers not caring how, when or where you do the work so long as it gets done.

    These are all behaviours that people use to build communities online all the time and so I can really see ‘social media experts’ being co-opted into broader management positions and being tasked with creating the internal cultures that we have so often tried to create amongst external audiences.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    The skills necessary to work in the future are exactly the same skills we’ve been developing in social media. Community leadership, collaboration, openness. Couldn’t agree more. Thanks for the comment Adi. 

  • Eric Herberholz

    Great post. Thanks! Perhaps we could pepper the discussion with terms like “community” and “collaboration”, implying the purpose instead of the tools/means.

  • Kelly Jo

    You and I met at a “social media” event in Portland, and I haven’t been back to any of those events since. Why? Because most of the people at those events are the self-branded social media experts that think accumulating Twitter followers and Facebook Likes is the only measure of success.

    I have an old-school journalism degree with an emphasis in advertising, and it has served me incredibly well in the marketing arena be it digital or otherwise. Most “social media experts” only know how to count clicks and completely ignore the human nature aspect of why people click.

    The cream  of the crop will eventually rise to the top.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    “Most “social media experts” only know how to count clicks and completely ignore the human nature aspect of why people click.” I’m stealing this sentence (with attribution of course). People who can figure out the why can solve any problem. It’s that simple, but you’re right, most people ignore it for some reason. 

  • http://www.BuildIdaho.com Trey Langford

    Great post Tac. I always want to throw up when someone introduces themselves as a Social Media Expert, especially when I realize they know less then I. Secondly, I puke even more when they then are SEO experts?

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  • http://twitter.com/Mekya05 Meghan McKeon

    Amen!

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