TwistImage: Who isn’t a new media/social media strategist?
If you look at many of the profiles found on Blogs and people’s ultra-short/sharp bios on Twitter, you will notice something very interesting: almost everybody says that they are either a New Media Strategist or a Social Media Strategist. What, exactly, does that mean and how can you better understand just how good they are at online strategy? …
BL Ochman and Chris Heuer were just talking about this earlier this week. It’s interesting to see the proliferation of social media experts on Twitter. I guess it’s nice to be in a field that’s growing exponentially — after years when people would grasp you by the shoulders and say, "It’ll be all right" when you tell them you’re a journalist.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
Wry grins over here. That's the price some pay for being early adopters, you have to fight the urge to be cynical when the post-chasm market begins to come online. It's easier when you remember that a lot more money enters the picture, too. The market always sorts out things medium term. It's also pretty easy to diligence by looking at experts' substantive thought leadership, speaking gigs, networks and case studies. Many come up short and disqualify themselves. Cheers.
Wry grins over here. That’s the price some pay for being early adopters, you have to fight the urge to be cynical when the post-chasm market begins to come online. It’s easier when you remember that a lot more money enters the picture, too. The market always sorts out things medium term. It’s also pretty easy to diligence by looking at experts’ substantive thought leadership, speaking gigs, networks and case studies. Many come up short and disqualify themselves. Cheers.
The thing that makes me feel so bat-shit insane about all of this, is how (as far as I can tell), there are no sociologists in the group. I mean, sure, some folks might know about freebie apps because they use them, but what about the intrinsic understanding of human interaction in groups? That’s notably absent– not only in the analysis, but in the development of the tools as well.
Is this really all we can be? Or can we be better?
I couldn’t agree more with Christopher’s comment. If you’re going to call yourself a SOCIAL media marketing expert, you’d better have a pretty good handle on understanding how people BEHAVE in social environments. Indeed, you should be able to PREDICT with some accuracy how they’ll behave in response to a campaign, Web property, interactive tool, etc. on the social Web.
As a marketer of 20 years, my biggest (and best) job has always been (and I hope always will be) getting inside other people’s heads. If your experience with social media consists of turning knobs and pushing buttons (i.e., building apps, using RSS, setting up profiles, etc.), then I don’t know how that qualifies you as a social media expert. That would simply qualify you as a technology expert of sorts. Which is precisely what many so-called social media experts are. Many others are just hucksters or wanna-bes who don’t yet know enough to know how much they don’t know.
@CarriBugbee
@Christopher – I have been saying this FOREVER…studying sociology is highly necessary for success in social media. Great point, glad to see others making it.
I’ve used the term social media strategist to describe myself as I thought it was quite accurate. I was even chided for it by some twitterers who have no idea what my background is. In the end we are in a similar position to where graphic designers were when DTP (desk top publishing) took off and even college kids who had never had any training offered to do ‘a logo for you’. Anyone who publshes a blog and is on twitter can be call themselves a social media strategist, but what will really matter in the long run is the results. If they get results then good for them, if they don’t they won’t get more work.