Avoid the Social Media Guru
Social media is not complicated, and its not expensive. In fact, its free! Anyone that tells you anything different is probably trying to rip you off. This is coming from someone that is currently making her living off providing help to companies on social media strategy and implementation. Hypocrite? I like to think not, and here’s why.
Give me or anyone else that understands the first thing about the internet a half hour and we could have you up and running with a Twitter account, Facebook page, and even a blog. But so what? Those accounts are ghost towns unless you are able to effectively leverage them to reach out to and engage your audience. Social media is a platform like any other. It is how you use social media tools, whether or not you are able to translate your brand into an online environment and then sustain that presence is what really matters.
There seems to be a common misconception that if someone has a lot of ‘friends’ or knows how to get attention online they will somehow be able turn any brand they touch into digital gold. These people are what I would describe as self-proclaimed ‘social media gurus’. Sure this type of personality may be able to get you some followers by metaphorically standing on a mountain top and screaming out your name to the people they know; but how is this sustainable and more importantly how will this strengthen your brand and your community?
Effective reach should not be measured by comments, page hits, followers, contest submissions, or even the number of times your content is shared. Sure those metrics can be helpful to see how many people your message is reaching, but what’s more important is who your message is reaching, why they are there in the first place, and whether or not they will be coming back.
The thought that I might be compared to companies that are effectively taking advantage of their client’s technological ignorance to extort more money than their services are truly worth makes me sick. These ‘social media gurus’ give a bad name to anyone working in the realm of social media consulting. Effective social media strategies require planning, trial and error, creativity, a thorough understanding of a companies primary business activities, offline activation, and more than anything else….time! There is a lot of value to be found in working with people who will help develop deliver your company’s social media strategy, just remember to stay away from the social media guru.
