The BrandForward Blog

This is the kind of post that gets you unfollowed. A post with some very unpopular ideas. We’ll call it the Hitler of blog posts. And considering it’s a Twitter #followfriday I should probably come up with something a bit more butterflies and sunshine. Or at least margaritas and martinis.

But no. Not me. I like to live on the wild side. Kinda like companies who hire “social media experts.”

So here’s where I get in trouble today: I think this whole “social media expert” thing is getting really out of hand. Really. And not just because every other person with a Facebook account, a plane ticket to Austin, and a Twitter badge is claiming to be one. It’s because even if a true social media expert actually exists, calling yourself one is just another way of saying “I know enough to be dangerous.”

By even using the words social media expert it’s like you’re intentionally not choosing to say marketing expert. Because that would be hard to pull off if you’re not one. But social media expert. That’s easy. Have Twitter account, will travel.

Which is why social media experts scare me. Because by definition they’re not marketing experts.

DOH!

For all the flashing lights and shooting stars, social media is simply a tool. Technically it’s an advertising medium. When someone says they’re a social media expert it carries the same weight as if someone said “I’m a cable media expert.” Okay. That’s just one medium. Yes, being an expert of a medium does have value. But I’m not going to hand over a blank sheet of paper and expect my cable rep to write a comprehensive marketing program or decide what the best message is, or work on creative or manage the client’s brand. Or (gasp!) all of the above.

Which is what I’m seeing a lot of social media’ers trying to do. Using the term “social media expert” interchangeably with “marketing expert.” Which is why it’s so scary.

So with all due disrespect when I see iPhone app writers and web site designers and 26 year-old “self-employed” twitterers and mommybloggers claiming the title of “social media expert” I feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland. Falling down a really deep hole. Into a world where anyone can be an expert, and having a few years experience and barely any real marketing under their belt somehow confers the status of rock star. It’s like strategic marketing never existed. Like Elvis walked in and everyone lost their head and started throwing panties.

A lot of people with knowledge of the internet but little or no marketing experience are riding the social media hype to make a buck. Or launch a new career. And because a lot of companies don’t have the first idea how to proceed in the social media space they’re forced to trust these “experts” for marketing advice.

A train wreck we are a’pproachin.

So let’s digress for a moment. Let’s assume there is such an animal. The social media expert. The rock star. Versed in all things Twitter, Facebook, Flicker, YouTube, Vimeo, and you name it. Let’s just call them channels. Thing is I don’t ever remember any of my cable reps fancying themselves up and announcing they’re an expert. I respect them for that. Which is why I have an issue with the social media variety. The humility is missing. They’re not happy as simply the purveyors of media planning information. They want to be on stage. With the panties.

So panties aside, I trust cable reps to provide recommendations that include (quantitative) demographics, reach, frequency, GRP, CPP, and CPM for every channel on the line-up. Similarly I would also trust a social media rep for the same type of advice for social media. Am I going to let them dictate what percentage of my budget belongs in social media? No. Am I going to let them have carte blanche to develop creative and determine the best message? No. Am I going to trust them to handle Adsense and affiliate marketing? Unless they can prove they were too busy with clients to get anywhere near SXSWi, probably not.

What’s truly the scariest part of the “social media expert” craze is a lot of companies are getting caught up in the glitz and glam of social media and letting these “experts” have a go at their marketing budget like Mike Tyson at a casting call for America’s Next Top Model. And even a lot of ad agencies are parading their shiny, new “social media departments” in front of clients. Further feeding the frenzied perception that social media experts are the second coming.

Now don’t get me wrong. Social media and internet marketing are good things. And I believe in SEO, SMO, SEM, SMM, CGM, PPC, CTR, PFI, SERP, CPC, SES, and OMG. And I love love love social media. I’m right there with it. No fewer than a hundred beta accounts to prove it. Internet is an effective advertising medium. And social media is an amazing marketing tool. But it’s just a tool.

Kinda like the Twitter search tool I’ll be using later to check my #unfollowfridays.

Bloggers who pop the big smiley-face balloon of social media can’t exactly expect to be a twitterverse favorite, now can we?

Yeah. Yet another Twitter post. But trust me, this one’s worth it.
Lots of juice. With pulp.

So let’s just get things started:

“Twitter isn’t meaningful communication.”

Where’s the laughing emoticon when you need it? Someone really said that. And because it ranks right up there with the Best of the Worst Tech Predictions Known To Man, I figured I’d dig up a few others to emphasize how quickly some “industry experts” clamor to be the voice of reason when technology starts seeming a bit too sci-fi for them.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“Apple is already dead.”
Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft chief technology officer, 1997

“I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995

“[The] ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union, 1879

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”
Prentice Hall (Publishing), 1957

And now we present for your enjoyment:

“Twitter isn’t meaningful communication.”

I actually came across this on the Daily Beast blog site. You should read the blog. http://tinyurl.com/cdjr6f. Good times.

Given Twitter’s sheer ability to allow people to communicate and access RELEVANT INTERESTING CONCISE information in real time, it’s hard to believe anyone who’s given an honest five minutes to Twitter could bash it with a straight face.

What it comes down to is that there’s a lot going on with social media right now. You’ve got the people who are adapting on one side of the fence, and the ones that are behind the curve on the other. Instead of stepping over and catching up, some of the traditionalists are trying to hide behind their comfy blogs, hoping by denouncing anything they don’t immediately understand they can just make it all go away. I mean seriously, the last couple of “anti-social media” blogs I’ve come across have sounded more like overwhelmed rants than astute observations. I think deep down they know something’s coming, but they’re just not ready to make all the huge, sweeping changes that come along with it.

It’s starting to seem like the issue is less about the product and more about operator error. I think the next time I come across a blog that rants against social media I’ll post something in the comments that’s simple and easy for them to comprehend:

Adaption FAIL.

Now here’s the deal. This post is going to suck. No attention to grammar. No smooth segues. No cloying humor. And forget a tidy tie-in at the end. It seems I’m addicted to twitter and don’t have time to be bothered by the particulars of a blog anymore. The world out there is spinning and churning and scrolling while I’m stuck in this little box. I feel… so… isolated.

Which is why it perplexes me that anyone (especially someone in the business of COMMUNICATING) could have two bad words to say about twitter. It’s the greatest thing since sliced facebook.

But apparently Bob Hoffman (The Ad Contrarian), CEO of Hoffman/Lewis San Francisco isn’t hitching a ride on this freedom train.

“How the narcissistic keep in touch with the feckless”

is his personal take on this whole newfangled toy the kids are playing with. http://tinyurl.com/cdhn8j. Hmmm. By his own admission his opinion is founded on… ahem… two bold encounters. But he claims psychologists support his observations, so it must be right.

Why yes, it’s absolutely logical. That someone who isn’t active on twitter would look from the outside and peep in like an octogenarian listening in on high school chatter. Tsk! Tsk!

Or that someone who’s dedicated their career to the study and treatment of mental health disorders would dance in glee over the prospect of a new “ailment/addiction/syndrome” suffered by millions of people… who by happenstance love talking about themselves. Match made in heaven.

So yeah, a guy who doesn’t get twitter (or get on it for that matter) and a group of PhDs whose whole existence (and Mercedes payments) hinge on VERBAL twitter are going to pound the gavel? I think not.

My two things about twitter:

1. I don’t care if half the people on twitter are narcissistic and the other half are cross-dressers. THEY ARE THE CONSUMER AND THIS IS WHERE THEY LIVE. This is who they are, and the job of the marketer/brander/ad guy is to figure out what’s valuable to them and what will motivate them to connect with a brand.

2. Twitter turns conventional media on its head. For that matter it’s turning facebook (and google!) on its head. Think of the record companies and their reaction to new media: They’re so attached to their 50 year-old business model they don’t see opportunity when she comes knocking at the door in the middle of the night with a bottle of Jameson and a box of Trojans.

Okay, here’s one more thing:

3. For every cool old ad guy that’s drinking from the twitter cup, there’s another old ad guy that’s feeling a bit squirmy about a medium where a corporation doesn’t control the content, a corporation can’t use tired analytics to measure ROI, and a corporation doesn’t write the monthly retainer check. Of course he’s not going to like twitter! Or those pesky kids who use it.

Twitter haters, RIAA executives… what’s the difference. The world is changing and they’re about to become obsolete. The ones that will still be standing in 5/10 years are the ones that realize the consumer really, truly is RIGHT. And not in a lip service kind of way. The consumer is right because the consumer finally has control over the options. Twitter being one of them. A big one of them.

Methinks squirmy ad guys should embrace what the world embraces. Learn to love what you don’t understand. Face down what scares you. (It’s called GROWTH.)

And this is where I’d normally throw in some quippy little kicker of a wrap-up but that would take an extra five minutes. And a lot can happen on twitter in five minutes.

(Why are you still here??? Get back there!)

Whoa!

I’ve been researching social media networks for an internet bootstrap, and today I came across the creepiest site I could ever imagine: Spokeo. Maybe they should just call it “Spookeo.”

Want to know what this gem of a site does? Give it a whirl and you’ll see how nothing you do is sacred anymore. After entering my email address, a list of my friends’ email addresses whirred down my screen. Along came a detailed list of their personal web surfing activities. Not necessarily everything… just juicy tidbits aggregated from sites where they forgot to edit their privacy settings. Yikes. Note to self.

No. I did not need to know that my very private doctor friend ordered a clingy, see-through lingerie top. (I saw the picture). I also did not need access to the reading list of my sexy, albeit high-ranking military buddy who is apparently considering exploring the joys of Pilates (thanks Amazon). Not to mention the former boss who has a thing for the Temptations and apparently Jim Beam. Thank god my ex-boyfriend believes in protecting his online identity because frankly, I don’t need to know how many times in an average week he logs onto adultfriendfinder, or which porn sites are picking up the slack.

Today for me was what they call in the world of journalism a “chilling effect.”

Hurriedly and with sweaty palms, I looked through my own internet activities… and was relieved to find that the most revealing information was my recent admission on twitter that I’d had more than a small amount of Blue Moon at a midweek get-together, as well as my penchant for questionable cable entertainment featuring a Miami serial killer, a suburban female drug dealer, and a West Coast sex addict. Although I have to admit I was seriously worried about all my late-night googling on nudist resorts and dungeon gear. (Can’t a girl be curious?) But seriously. How’s it going to look if my grandmother runs across that? Not that my grandmother would know a google search from a garage sale. But I’m not liking the visual.

Sadly, we’re not only stuck with Spokeo, we’re about to get more and more invaded by aggregators just like it. During my early days of CBS Big Brother addiction… give me a break I was in my 20s… (oh alright, 30s) I fleetingly thought it would be cool to battle wits with 13 other morons in front of a 24/7 camera. But I couldn’t quite handle the thought of some producer having all the control… portraying me as a delusional banshee or a weepy holy roller at their own personal, ratings-driven, whim. It really bothered me that anything I said could and would be used (and spliced) against me. Well guess what. Thanks to Spokeo, we’re all going to have our own 15 minutes of mashed-up, out-of-context, our-own-fault fame. Unwittingly.

And for a lot of us, probably painfully.