 |
Roderick Low is a social media coach and trainer at Expeditus Media. He helps small and medium businesses make sense of the social web and equip them with the skills, tools and strategies necessary to reach out and connect to their target audience.
Mashable recently published an interesting article showing how much the social media industry has “grown”. Through Tweepsearch, it was found that there are as many as 15,740 ’social media experts’ on Twitter; a huge jump from the 4,487 that was revealed by blogger, B.L Ochman last May.
The blog, Broadstuff pointed out that this growth would continue and by 2012, we would have as many as 30 million ’social media experts’ plying their trade globally.
During the same period, BusinessWeek published an article warning us about social media snake oil salesmen. There are currently a lot of chatter around this topic, with many industry experts weighing in to give their own perspective.
An industry expert, Oliver Blanchard also wrote a post criticizing the work of snake oil salesmen. In his post, he doubt the credentials of those who are providing certified training via webinars. He raised questions that people should ask themselves before taking up such courses.
− What exactly is this certification program?
− Where did it come from?
− Who developed it?
− Who is teaching it?
− Why does it cost almost $3000?
My take is that the industry is not mature enough to be issuing certifications. Like Oliver said: “No piece of paper is going to validate you as a social media professional. Don’t you dare waste $3,000 on a series of webinars and a piece of paper.”
Now I am not saying that all social media professionals are snake oil salesmen. However, the research results and the negative response from industry experts have shown that the rise of Twitter and other social networks have lowered the entry barrier. Therefore, I have put together the following advice which I hope will help you make sound decisions before you throw in thousands of dollars on certifications or ‘social media gurus’.
1. Measuring ROI
Counting followers, fans and even traffic are metrics to measure social media ROI. However, they are not the most important metrics. If you are going to invest $$$ into your campaign, make sure your social media consultant is able to measure its returns. And by returns, I mean those that are not measured by CTR, CPM or some other abbreviation.
2. Integrating social media with existing marketing channels
Social media is not a stand alone marketing channel and should not be seen as one. It works extremely well with existing marketing channels that the company has already established. Your agency must never insist that you drop other marketing channels to concentrate on social media alone.
3. Participation across organization
Launching a blog sounds like a cool idea, but a blog without a good author isn’t. A Twitter page is a good idea too, unless all you are going to do is push promotions and advertising messages.
Everyone can build a blog or a Twitter account. What’s challenging is the quality of content that they are going to provide, and how regularly. If no one is going to tell you how hard it is to manage social media, I would. Like what Ogilvy Digital Strategist Patricia Law said, “It’s like marriage – if you’re not ready for the commitment, don’t say “I do”.
4. Launching global social media campaigns
Some people might want to entice you with the prospect of a global social media campaign. However, because of culture and environmental differences, I realize that what works in Singapore might not work in Malaysia or Indonesia. So how would a person or an agency provide strategic and tactical support for launching a global social media campaign?
Conclusion
These are just some of the questions you might want to ask before making a huge investment to ‘social media consultants‘. If they can’t answer these questions in an intelligent and logical way, consider moving on.
Ultimately, as a business person, what you want to see is the increase in bottomline, and the results are all in the numbers. Don’t get distracted by the buzz words and the hype surrounding social media. The means and channels might have changed, but the marketing principles have not.
Last but not least, here’s a hilarious video about the ’social media guru’:
-
Stock photo powered by Pixmac
Share this post
Related Posts
Tags: guru, Marketing, snake oil, Social Media
