I couldn’t help but giggle when I read B. L. Ochman’s recent post on self-proclaimed social media experts, gurus, ninjas, etc. on Twitter “multiplying like rabbits.” Based on her search of Twitter bios, they went from 4.4k to almost 16k in seven months.
Wow. Rabbits indeed!
And then I saw this cartoon from HubSpot today.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but recall Lisa Hoffmann‘s post from earlier this year, when she posited that “if social media experts aren’t experts only the charlatans will be ‘experts.'” It sparked a great conversation on her blog, which you should read, if you haven’t as yet.
I do believe, however, that while expertise is earned, the title of expert is bestowed.
You Can Call Yourself a Social Media Guru If…
So, as far as I’m concerned, here are the top 10 things you’ll need to be able to do before calling yourself a social media guru. Counting down, now…
10. Make the sun rise in the West.
9. Along those lines, how about making the earth orbit the moon (thanks, Chip Griffin, for this one).
8. Speak Sanskrit backwards and forwards at the same time. (You’re calling yourself a guru, after all, gotta show some respek to the land from whence that term comes.)
7. Prove global warming.
6. Disprove global warming.
5. Leap tall buildings in a single bound.
4. Levitate on demand. Mine.
3. Get Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston back together again.
2. Make the Cubs win the World Series (direct your tomatoes to Colby Gergen for this gem, please).
And at #1 is:
1. Bring Elvis back from the dead. And no, the TCB concerts don’t count.
And When You Do…
… Please let me know so that I can sign up to worship at your altar?
Top image: secretlondon123 via Flickr, CC 2.0
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You are soooo right on with this post about social media “experts”. I think we’ve all encountered these folks in our profession. In order to be an expert you need a solid foundation and experience in providing action with results.
Thanks, Ann Marie!
You got me! I came here expecting serious conversation and was delighted to discover this entertaining post :)
My add:
You must be able to alienate people outside the fishbowl within 30 seconds. For example:
“Don’t you just love Posterous? You don’t know it? Heh. Well, gotta run. I’m headed to a tweet-up to live tweet a crowdsource for new OpenAPI mashups. Better check in on Foursquare first. Look! I’m the mayor of Dunkin’ Donuts! I’m gonna cross-post that everywhere! Ping you later.”
Oh, I love it, Lisa – thank you! And thank you for your thoughtful post so many months ago. As you can tell, it stayed with me. You’re one of the true experts, in my eyes.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by shonali: You Can Call Yourself a Social Media Guru If… http://tr.im/IVjJ. Your adds? H/t @whatsnext @chipgriffin @lisahoffmann @colbyWG @hubspot…
Ha! Great post, Shonali. What if Google lists you #1 out of over 6.3 million as a “digital strategy expert?”
http://www.google.com/search?q=digital+strategy+expert
Does that count? :)
Well, if Google says it, you KNOW it’s true! ;-)
AWESOME post! Love it. I think along the lines of B.L.’s comment they should be able to form complete sentences of 140 characters without one complete word too. Let me demonstrate: OMG! Ttly luv tis! C U nxt mon 4 mtg @ 2. Ur da shizzle.
Wait. Shizzle might be a word. Sorry. Off to check dictionary…
;)
Heh, Rebecca, good one! Or, I should say, it’s the hizzle, shizzle.
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Ah, it’s so refreshing to see an entertaining take on the inevitable scenario that social media brewed up. It’ll all square itself away once consumers and brands demand proof of ‘expertise, just like any other medium or communication vehicle. The first glimpses of that will be in ‘specialization’ as SM Experts. That’ll all be hogwash for a while too:)
Either way, I think rather than everyone waxing on about how we can’t all be experts (which the dictionary could tell us), we should all just kind of sit back and watch the frenzy. It’s rather humorous.
I think the “specialization” has already started, though, don’t you? It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for everyone to realize you still need good communication skills, regardless of the shiny new toys… or whether they’ll realize it at all. After all, most people who practice it still don’t know what “PR” is…!
Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Shonali Burke, Colby Gergen. Colby Gergen said: RT @shonali: You Can Call Yourself a Social Media Guru If… http://tr.im/IVjJ. Your adds? […]
OMG that is hilarious.
and don’t forget that social media gurus should be able to speak entire paragraphs in tech gibberish. that is very important too :>)
LOL, absolutely! And they must also insert the words “leverage” and “synergy” into every sentence they say.
Thanks for a great post, BL, and for stopping by.