Comments on: More on “The Social Media Experts”

By: We Don’t Need Another Hero – A Rebuttal | The Brand Chef

We Don’t Need Another Hero – A Rebuttal | The Brand Chef — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:13:48 +0000

[...] his distaste for the trend of social media consultants popping up out of nowhere (here, here, and here). But in this morning’s post, he created a correlation to other markets and specifically to the [...]

By: Troy

Troy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:06:02 +0000

Thanks for the insight, Nathan. Again, I have nothing against you, or the other social media consultants out there, Im just torn between two different worlds:

One says social media is unregulated and should remain so.
One says social media should be an “educated” profession and have standards.

Perhaps my frustration lies not only in the battle between whether social media consultants should be “qualified” but something else not so apparent. It could lie in my own Journalism/Marketing background that I had to go through school for, or it could be as simple as my psyche being “jealous” I’m not doing it myself.

Thank you to everyone for exploring it with me.

By: Nathan T. Wright

Nathan T. Wright — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:58:50 +0000

Here’s how we measure success and ROI for our client social media initiatives – we set goals and objectives at the beginning of every project, and then we assess at mid-way and at the end. Were goals and objectives met? Yes or no? If yes, great. Sometimes the goal is furthering education and understanding on a specific platform or community. Other times it is increasing the client’s digital footprint, or gaining more interaction with customers. (All very easy stuff to measure.) If objectives weren’t met, then we tweak, re-tool and re-assess.

By: Troy

Troy — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:19:12 +0000

I don’t normally allow anonymous comments (I thought Social Media was about transparency…) but you bring up some good points.

Mainly this one, which Dallas and Ben questioned:

Should social media consultants a) be grouped with marketing/branding and b) be considered a “skilled” occupation.

Being Christmas and all, I will formulate a response and post it back here. Obviously my gut reaction to both is “uh, yeah!” I know as a business owner, I would much rather hand over my money to someone with credentials that can be measured, rather than someone who talks a good talk.

I wonder if any of the social media consultants in the Des Moines area would reveal candidly how they measure success and ROI for any client’s social media initiatives.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:22:33 +0000

Hey Troy

I may be late to this party – it’s tagged as being posted a week ago but just came through my reader today for some reason.

Your premise seems to be predicated on social media belonging in the realm of marketing/branding. Your implication is that an education or experience in marketing and branding equates to credentials for success in social media especially as related to no marketing/branding experience.

Social media is not a function of marketing/branding; it’s a function of human interaction. I would posit that marketing/branding experience can actually be seen as a barrier to success in social media. I’ve met many folks with the type of background you extoll who just can’t drop their broadcast mentality. They come into social media and talk about controlling the message and impressions and campaigns and all that broadcast-y behavior that has turned other forms of media into a big stinking corpse.

I would further argue that anyone with extensive experience connecting with other human beings using social media is better prepared to teach/coach about social media than someone with no social media experience but having 10 years of marketing experience and a big fat student loan payment to pay off. Skippy, the auto repair technician you mock, is just as likely to be a social media whiz as the VP of marketing.

In the end, I would recommend an auto mechanic with social media experience over a marketing/branding consultant or agency (with or without social media experience). Every time. 100%.

That auto mechanic doen’t have to unlearn 15 years of shouting at customers with a bullhorn.