My Name Is Scott Manley and I am NOT a Social Media Expert
This would be one of those posts that either falls under either the “rant” category or the “I must be missing something” category.
If you really are an experienced professional in social media, you’ve got to be getting fairly ticked off with everyone that’s coming out of the woodwork claiming to be one of your peers. Your area of expertise, while very new, is getting very watered down.
There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not being friended, linked, or followed by an expert. Most of these are great people and I’ve found some helpful or funny material by having them in my network. However, it’s not their personality, helpfulness, or interaction that I’ve got an issue with. My issue is with the title they’ve chosen to give themselves.
First, I’ve never been a fan of the word “expert”. It’s constantly cheapened, almost never validated, and can be typed into a doc, presentation, business card, or blog by anyone. I find that people that call themselves by that title usually aren’t.
That aside, let’s now look at those that may claim to be a little more experienced in these popular topics then they actually are. I’ve found a few quick tell-tale signs that separate the wheat from the shaft:
- No URL or Pic on your twitter, Facebook, or Linkedin profiles
- The blog you refer people to on those sites has one month of posts; Half talk about your pet or family. The other half mention and link to a Chris Brogan post.
- You twitter or RT @garyvee, @chrisbrogan, @guykawasaki multiple times a day
- Your Linkedin profile shows you were a project manager at a large corporation two months ago
- You haven’t figured out how to create different friend lists on Facebook yet so I (someone you’ve never met and reached out to professionally) got to see pics of you sh*tfaced at happy hour last week
- You’ve got the favicons of every social media site out there on your blog and at the end of your email, including Pownce.
If any of the preceding items pertain to you, please take the time to change your title.
I am not an expert (never will be). I’m still learning and trying to make the most of social media, primarily for my business. I think it’s awesome that so many people are out there and that a majority are trying to help each other out or just meet new people and learn new things. I also realize that the economy stinks and for those that are newly out on their own job-wise, you try and cast your net where the fish are and that social media is very hot topic that many businesses are currently trying to get their arms around. To those people, I wish you the best.
The thing about social media is that it makes things more transparent. It’s very hard to BS now-a-days and not get caught…very quickly and very publicly. Spend more time on figuring out what your goals are and how you want to interact with people and less time on your title…and please don’t try to connect with me on all thirty of your social networks at once.
