What is a social media expert?

Looking at the wide variety of social media experts, it is easy to quickly become jaded to their assorted value propositions. At the same time, however, there is still the inkling that social media is part of a greater transition from Television, radio, and print media to the web. This transition will occur and it will not simply be a matter of copying content from one staging area to another. The internet is a two (in fact, a multi-way) medium and leveraging this power will require knowledge of social media and how to utilize it. This is where knowledge of social networks and marketing across these channels comes in. There will be a need for social media experts and some will emerge who can create value. Currently, however, we are still in the starting stages of this transition and many of these ‘experts’ have little more than a couple of months more knowledge and experience than their customers. The list below discusses some of the traits that a real social media professional should exhibit. These traits should be up front and free. The specific details of their offerings may of course cost money, but there should at least be a well presented and organized presentation of how they can deliver on their stated promises.

By Microgeist, continue with the original here

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Posted by visionarymarketing under Innovation

In our previous article about social media, we have described the 8 reasons why managers love social media and we have also debunked a few commonplace myths. In this new instalment we’ll look at the flip side of corporate social media perception, the negative one, and we will also discuss the rationale behind each of these arguments.

• #1. All these online conversations could be dangerous, we’ll be losing control”: it’s true that social media is about employees, clients, partners and members of all kinds of eco systems talking to one another. There is often that perception that these conversations might lead to the disparagement of the brand. Such discussions are often perceived negatively by managers, as if they didn’t feel quite sure about how reliable or likable their brand actually is. Hence they fail to assess and nurture brand loyalty through these discussions, although such discussions are often led by volunteers and afficionados. Also, in essence, this is what a brand is all about. A brand is what your clients “say about you when you’re not in the room” (probably by Jeff Bezos but the source is unclear and many versions of that quotation exist). And such discussions, good or bad, are bound to happen anyway, for social media (aka web 2.0) has made free expression available to all Internet users. Use social media to harness all these discussions rather than pretending you can prevent them. There are more opportunities than risks associated with it when you think about it. As Intel’s Ken Kaplan once declared at a 2008 Blogwell conference in San Jose : “social media is not something to fear but to embrace”,

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Forrester Research predicts that interactive marketing spending will hit $25.6 billion this year — up 11% from $23.1 billion in 2008, despite being flat, as marketers shift money from traditional media to digital channels.

That total, which also includes search, email, social media and mobile marketing dollars, is expected to more than double to nearly $55 billion by 2014. “This growth is due to marketers seeking lower cost, more accountable channels which are also widely used by their customers,” wrote Forrester analyst Shar Van Boskirk, in a blog post previewing the firm’s interactive spending forecast due out in June.

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