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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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I’d hire a social media expert, and maybe you should, too.

There's a reason experts are in demand.Social media experts have been under assault lately. I guess my previous post on the topic didn’t have much influence.

To start with, let’s make sure we’re on the same page. An expert is a person who has prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in a particular field. I’m not sure why that’s such an undesirable attribute for someone to have.

The objections fall in a couple categories. First, there are those who believe anybody who calls him or herself a social media expert (or guru or ninja or whatever) couldn’t possibly be one. Anyone with the temerity to so label themselves probably spent six months on Twitter and created a moderately effective Facebook page, then hung out a shingle.

If you hire someone like this, you have nobody but yourself to blame. You wouldn’t hire a structural engineer, a chemist or an auditor without checking their references and verifying that they have experience, that they’ve actually done the work and not just talked a good game. The same due diligence applies to hiring any other kind of expert, including one who focuses on social media.

The other objection was articulated in a recent post by Peter Shankman (all around nice guy, great speaker and successful serial entrepreneur). Here’s what Peter wrote:

Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.

That makes for a nice sound bite, and of the 352 comments left to the post, most echo the “Amen, brother” from the very first comment. But it’s wrong. So, so wrong. What if you change “expert in social media” to “expert in “solid rocket boosters?” The goal is to launch the space shuttle, but if all you ever do is focus on solid rocket boosters, you can’t get the shuttle off the pad. Right?

Of course not. It takes experts in many dimensions of the shuttle to get it into orbit. The idea that everybody involved is a generalist who should know everything about the shuttle is ridiculous.

And while social media isn’t exactly rocket science, it’s not as stupifyingly simple as making a sandwich, either. (If you think it is, then you’re probably one of those who also believes it’s really, really cheap.)

Dismissing the experts means never getting the benefit of a Jason Falls, Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyag, Jay Baer, Maggie Fox, Liz Strauss, C.C. Chapman, Beth Harte and a slew of others who know a ton and by sharing it can add value to your efforts. it means Ford Motor Company should never have hired Scott Monty and Dell was out of its freakin’ mind for putting someone like Manish Mehta in charge of social media, since the marketing staff should just internalize it into their other activities.

But what does an organization lose when everyone’s a generalist and nobody’s the go-to person on a specific area of subject matter expertise? A lot, says I. Pundits have made hay out of another sound bite that goes something like this: “It’s better for social media to be 1 percent of 100 employees’ jobs than 100% of 1 person’s job.” Again, it sounds great but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

At companies like Dell and Gatorade, they’ve hired people just to monitor social media. They’re trained to know what to look for, to process analytics at a glance and to know what they should do with the insights they glean. Should that be part of everybody’s job? Well, to a degree, yes. But it’s all these staffers do. They’re experts. Presumably, the marketers and PR practitioners and other communicators in the organization have marketing, PR and communications to do and can’t spend their entire day just focused on monitoring and analytics.

At BlogWorld last week in New York, I sat in on an excellent panel that looked at Facebook analytics and the EdgeRank system the social network employs. It was mind-boggling watching Dennis Yu go through the paces, from tapping into EdgeRank analytics to showing how he’d bang out a quick script to analyze the connections of any Facebook member (and then use the resulting information to improve a page’s ability to get into news feeds).

If this isn’t a skill you have in your organization—and even the largest companies don’t necessarily hire for something so granular—then Dennis or another expert may be just the ticket.

Together, we could probably list 20 or 30 social media specialties where a company could benefit from the expertise of someone who spends all their time focused on it, learning it, executing for multiple clients, talking about it with peers.

So here’s the deal. Never say never. If you need someone with a specific skill or capability you don’t have, find someone with the qualifications, the experience and the references to do the job, then hire them. I really don’t give a crap what this person calls himself, only whether he’s got the chops to do the job. If you get the results you were hoping for, it was a good move.

Photo: Some rights reserved by Mae Li.

Comments
  • 1.A post I'd been planning to write, but probably couldn't have explained so eloquently.

    Dismissing social media as 'just common sense' may be true to some extent when it comes to posting an update on Twitter or Facebook etc, but you can pretty much boil anything down to 'just common sense'. Driving a car well is just common sense, but not everyone can make a living racing cars.

    The other common complaint is that many people self-titled as 'social media experts' are just former bloggers who have no idea about how business really works, which is dismissing a growing number of people with relevant business experience and backgrounds who now practice social media in one form or another.

    Still, it's always good linkbait, alongside the end of RSS and how Facebook has killed blogs, etc...

    Dan Thornton | June 2011 | Peterborough, UK

  • 2.shel - there are two things i really dislike about this post.

    1. i didn't write it
    2. i've spent quite a few cycles trying to write something similar

    social media experts have been getting a bad rap recently but it should not be because of their area of expertise; it should be because the the term has been overused. social media is still a nascent discipline that organizations are struggling with - what to do with it and how to operationalise it - and its so true that in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. there are a lot of people touting they know everything when in fact they just know a little bit more.

    Ed Lee | June 2011

  • 3.I believe this bashing of social media experts is an extension of the argument of who owns social media. The question of who owns social media is a symptom of not truly understanding social media. Dismissing social media as just common sense is a sign of someone who has never worked with a client helping them integrate social media in their business.

    That is what a social media expert does.

    Just like there are many doctors, lawyers, and used car salespeople with all kinds of different experiences, values, and approaches to their profession, there are all kinds of social media experts. The danger of bashing the profession is that companies who need the guidance the most will look to people who specialize in only one area that social media touches, such as PR or Marketing and will continue to miss out on new opportunities or will not recognize the incoming threats of today’s world.

    Sherry Heyl | June 2011

  • 4.Nicely said, Shel - but thoughtfulness and keen insights are no surprise coming from you.

    Earlier this week I wrote a long post in response to the criticisms Peter Shankman made in his recent diatribe against “social media experts.” It offers a different perspective on his arguments, articulates the need for social media expertise, and provides guidance for hiring individuals and organizations (consultants, contractors, and employees) to help with social media initiatives. I would love for you (and others) to read/comment on what I wrote if you have time.

    The post is entitled "Social Media Experts: Yes, they Exist. And Yes, You Should Hire Them. But Do Your Due Diligence." Here's a link to it: http://tiny.cc/SMinOrgsSMEpost.

    Thanks!

    Courtney Hunt
    Founder, Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) Community

    Courtney Hunt | June 2011 | United States

  • 5.Dan nailed it: It's about linkbait and ego. Period.

    Even if Peter's right about the fallacy of "social media experts"...even if Gary Vaynerchuk was right in his recent rant...who cares? Why in God's name do Shankman and Vaynerchuk feel the need to rail against faux experts? Don't these guys have better things to do?

    Real social media experts use their skills to help people and achieve business objectives. Scratch that. Real marketers do those things. Real PR pros do those things. Real leaders do those things.

    They don't worry so much about what others call themselves.

    Scott Hepburn | June 2011 | http://www.twitter.com/ScottHepburn

  • 6.Dear Shel,

    Thank you for this post. Actually, the more we read and write about Social Media and its experts the more it becomes clear that there is not THE Social Media expert.

    Social Media comes in many shades and depending on what you need and want to achieve, you would hire someone who has this specific skill. I agree that for monitoring or for any technical issues, you need an expert. Yet would you call them Social Media expert?

    Social Media as most of us experience it, is a way to connect and to share. We have moved our personal relations to platforms on the web where we, technically, can bond with millions of people.

    Doing this well, you have to be a human being who knows how to treat people with respect, how to lisen and how to provide value.

    Sure, you can learn those things, yet if you grew up with them it will be easier and more natural for you.

    If you like this statement, you might like this article as well: http://www.gabyfeile.com/2011/04/21/why-you-probably-are-a-social-media-expert/.

    Cheers and happy socializing,

    Gaby Feile
    Chief Communication Stylist

    Gaby Feile | June 2011

  • 7.Shel,

    An eloquent exposition of what many of us couldn't express. Social media (or the math of how to interact with many individuals at the same time) is driven by the same principles as gravity and how to fix your broken microwave. Just because most social media "gurus" don't understand the mechanics of human behavior doesn't mean that the rules don't apply to them.

    It's my belief that many of the "experts" will be driven from the space when the educated client will demand measurable performance from their campaigns. What drives me nuts is how many pundits don't have numbers to back up their suppositions, as if the honored principles of testing in the scientific method are ignored.

    Yet, there is a mix of art and science here. Social media is partly customer care, finance, HR, marketing, and engineering. It's left and right brain. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so many of these experts will apply the same technique to every single situation-- and without measurement, nobody can tell if there's success.

    My hope is to boldly shine the light on social media metrics to separate out the true "renaissance" people (those who have cross-functional knowledge), from those who merely gesture profoundly.

    Dennis Yu | June 2011 | your nearest airport

  • 8.Kudos, Shel. I'm fond of illustrating with car mechanics what you do with rocket engineers. You don't want any engine hobbyist to fix your car but someone who's certified in the subject. Ditto with web marketing; forget the person who read "Social Media for Dummies" but focus on she who's managed online communities, marketed projects, etc.

    I'm a social media expert. I guess Peter Shankman won't hire me. Oh well.

    Ari Herzog | June 2011

  • 9.Shel, another wonderful post, sir. I enjoyed Peter's post but perhaps I read it from the standpoint of the growing number of people who have hung the "SM Expert" shingle with limited enterprise experience.

    The list of names you have here along with the likes of Mitch Joel, Mark Schaefer, brother Shel Israel and Mari Smith are not social media experts, they are experienced business professionals utilizing (say it with me) the myriad tools available.

    I jumped on the bandwagon and proclaimed "you are not a social media expert and neither am I" but you make an excellent point. I was called a social media douchebag a couple of times and as someone who has been in marketing and media for 27 years, perhaps I should be honored. http://bit.ly/mfADVL

    This is from Peter's bio on Twitter: "I'm told I'm knowledgeable about social media." Following: 669 Followers: 102,858

    Kneale Mann | June 2011

  • 10.@Ari - I think your last line would look great on a t-shirt, maybe with the words spelled out (using the magnetic poetry thingies) on a fridge (circa 1940s). I can see it now... : )

    Courtney Hunt | June 2011 | United States

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