Don’t hire a “Social Media Expert”, just start caring about your customers

30 May 2011 • 3 Comments

Peter Shankman wrote an epic post on Business Insider called Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A “Social Media Expert”. The 1st sentence tells you that you’re in for a good rant:

I was going to call this article “All ‘Social Media Experts’ Need To Go Die In A Fire,” but I figured I should be nicer than that.

This should be required reading if you’re planning on outsourcing your social media to an ‘expert’. The author’s ultimate point is that social media is not a magic pill that will make your company successful. To achieve success, the formula is “solid marketing and stellar customer service, just like it’s been since the beginning of time”. He goes on to explain how companies should be using social media – by being transparent, relevant, brief and by knowing your customer.

I get approached by too many companies who see social media as a shortcut. They want to make a cool Facebook page, get lots of fans and followers and then expect success to follow. Others want to create a whole new department to handle social media marketing. Social media is just another facet of marketing and customer service. (Then again, maybe those who approached me don’t have marketing and customer service departments).

Please recognize social media for what it is. I understand that things are different, and that it may be a big headache to learn about Twitter when everyone seems to be speaking in a different language. But 20 years ago when computers and email was becoming an essential communications tools, your company didn’t outsource it to a computer and email typing expert right?

The bottom line is that if you care enough about your company and brand, you’ll make it your business to learn up about these social tools so that you can speak to your customers on the same frequency. It’s an excuse to say that it’s too difficult, or that you need to be an expert. Non-experts get by just fine in social media.

Jump into it and start learning. I’ll make you a promise – tweet me (I’m @blogjunkie on Twitter) and tell me you’re new. I’ll be your first follower and I’ll answer any questions you have. And if you need more in-depth instruction, I’ll be happy to provide you with customized coaching or training.

http://twitter.com/DaveDuarte Dave Duarte

Hi David. While there are plenty charlatans in Social Media there are also those who are adding lots of value. See Shel Holtz take on whether you should hire a Social Media expert or not (he thinks you should): http://socialmediatoday.com/shelholtz/302308/i-d-hire-social-media-expert-and-maybe-you-should-too?utm_source=feedburner

Are you attending the World Bloggers and Social Media Summit in KL tomorrow?

http://theclickstarter.com David Wang

Hi Dave, thanks for stopping by. I think social media consultants have their place, but that place is not to abdicate their clients of the marketing and customer service responsibility entirely.

Unfortunately no, I won’t be attending the summit. Please tweet your observations, I’ll be following

http://www.interactive-md.com Travis

I think your point is valid David on the whole consulting position here. I think some people will have more experience in this social realm that can lend very good advice, but from my experience to be “social” you sort of have to know your customers. You really need to understand what is happening within your company and be able to discuss the good, bad and ugly of it all. So if you’re relying on a company that manages couple dozen sites to make sure they get each post and catch all the questions, I think you barking up the wrong tree.
I manage websites for a living and we have struggled with this in the past. We found the clients who manage their sites daily, themselves, have had a much better response than those that we managed for them. You can argue that perhaps we sucked at it, or didn’t try enough promotions or gimmicks, but I stand by the fact that people want to hear from you the owner (or representative) not some clever writer.
So now we make the cool pages and help with fun games and promotions but tell our clients that you need someone within the company to handle the daily posts and respond to customer questions. Sure I lose a little money but overall the client is getting the results and that’s ultimately what really matters.