Comments on: Social Media Consulting Can Be Extremely Valuable

By: правила установки радиаторов отопления

правила установки радиаторов отопления — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:33:05 +0000

недурно – отзывы отстой

By: Direct Marketing » Blog Archive » The Rise Of Anti-Social Behaviour

Direct Marketing » Blog Archive » The Rise Of Anti-Social Behaviour — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 06:38:55 +0000

[...] : Be transparent, engage with your customers, break down silos.’ Which has led one or two social media consultants to defend their practices as both professional and good value. So [...]

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:50:18 +0000

From @armano

Self-proclaimed social media “gurus” multiplying like rabbits.

http://j.mp/8bFCIx

By: Louis Gray

Louis Gray — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:27:32 +0000

Aaron’s comment is amusingly accurate. Back in July of ’08, I said “Social Media Experts are the New Webmasters”. http://blog.louisgray.com/2008/07/social-media-experts-are-new-webmasters.html

The hardest part of actually trying to impact a company as a third party consultant in this area is separating yourself from the noise. The next time I call myself an SME or Guru or whatever is the first time. Do the job, and do it right, on a professional level. I have no doubt you know what you are doing, and the noise just needs to be ignored.

By: memePDX 007: Portland is open, WhereCamp PDX, WordPress.tv, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Google Wave, and boco | Oregon Startup Blog

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:33:58 +0000

[...] week, we cover Portland’s openness, WhereCamp PDX, WordPress.tv, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Google Wave, and boco. Oh and we throw 40 iPhone apps in to [...]

By: David Jacobs

David Jacobs — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:11:21 +0000

How could you pay someone to teach you to ride a bike, that’s easy. Yeah, when you know how to ride. For those that don’t, it’s not so easy and they do need help. There are good car mechanics and crappy ones. I don’t worry about any of this. My clients refer me to others. When they stop, than I’ll know I’m full of shit.

By: Richard Cummings

Richard Cummings — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:35:27 +0000

Marshall,

A couple of thoughts. First, I just linked over to the “very funny” video and loved it.

Second, Social Media is great for tech companies because people NEED this information.

However, too many Joe-Bloggers use it to say nothing at all thinking that they’re site will rocket to popularity.

–Richard

By: memePDX 007: Portland is open, WhereCamp PDX, WordPress.tv, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Google Wave, and boco « Silicon Florist

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:44:42 +0000

[...] week, we cover Portland’s openness, WhereCamp PDX, WordPress.tv, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Google Wave, and boco. Oh and we throw 40 iPhone apps in to [...]

By: Eric Stoller

Eric Stoller — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:21:44 +0000

I am frequently followed on Twitter by “social media experts” who have SEO, Social Media, Facebook, etc. plastered all over their account background. My philosophy is that if you have to say that you are a guru, you probably aren’t.

Good consultants rarely have to tout their ability / services as the work generally flows in on its own via referrals.

By: Tom Foremski

Tom Foremski — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:14:04 +0000

Social media experts bitching about each other just brings down the whole bunch of them. You’d think being social media experts they would realize that this would be the effect.

By: FFcommunicator

FFcommunicator — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:15:45 +0000

Depends on who’s giving the advice. Advertising agencies don’t know what they’re doing and they’re who first comes to mind when marketers need help. Read “The No Duh’s of Social Media” for more information. http://www.famefoundry.com/646/the-no-duhs-of-social-media

By: Digidave

Digidave — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:25:34 +0000

As a person who has participated in the “we hate social media experts meme” (I was an early adopter too – I will say this.

There are good and bad consultants. I have no doubt that you are a good one. Your writing alone proves it.

The problem, as Jeremy notes, is that it is really easy to claim “social media expert” status. And there are some snake oil folks out there that give the general advice: “start a blog and be in a conversation” and that doesn’t help folks.

But the good ones, like you – are why this profession won’t (and shouldn’t) vanish into thin air. It will end up making it a more competitive market because folks like me (semi-technical – the most dangerous type of technical) will be cautious before we hire one.

p.s. You rock.

By: rick

rick — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:49:54 +0000

I agree with Jeremy, but the other thing that your post made me think is that your Sun project wasn’t just consulting in the sense of pure advice, it was getting down and implementing stuff that delivered value. That demonstrated value does a lot to drive the point home that there’s something to this in a way that advice can’t.

By: Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:19:20 +0000

Good post MK. I think the “social media consultants are full of crap” meme comes from two key problem areas:

1) Huge companies spending a lot of money on extremely simple stuff. I know a Fortune 100 company who spends $20K per month to monitor Twitter. I know of Big Media brands who spend similar amounts just to “get set up on Twitter and Facebook”. It’s much like “HTML consulting” back in ’95. But that will all come to an end soon anyway…

and 2) SM Consultants offering “routine” advice (“listen to the conversation”, “make a facebook fan page and engage with your customers”) without giving specific, useful strategies. I think this is particularly compounded by an overflow of people with little-to-no “real world” business experience all of a sudden being called “gurus” at anything. Considering “social media” as an industry is ~5ish years old, it’s pretty hard to claim “guru” status at anything other than personal branding (which quite a few do quite well)…

By: Marshall

Marshall — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:50:46 +0000

Thanks for that perspective Aaron, I hope you’re right. In the mean-time it sure is frustrating.

By: Aaron B. Hockley

Aaron B. Hockley — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:35:45 +0000

I think the field of social media consultants is much like any other field in that there are good consultants and bad consultants. The current environment reminds me much of the environment of “web designers” during the dot com era. There were those that really knew their stuff, and there were also a lot that just hopped on web design as the latest fad that could bring in a quick buck. When that bubble burst, the ones with skills kept on doing web design while the wannabes moved onto something else, unable to cut it in the new market. I expect that the field of folks doing social media consulting will play out in a similar fashion: those with original ideas, skills, and the ability to be thought leaders will have success, while those who simply read a book and decided to become a consultant will fizzle and move on.