I’ve backed away from commenting on social media marketing recently for two reasons that are interrelated. First I’ve been busy actually doing social media marketing as opposed to talking about it. Second, I am fed up with ’social media gurus’ who talk, appear at conferences, tweet, blog etc., but do not actually do social media marketing in a measurable way. Just as we can’t all be chiefs, we also can not all be experts. Expertise comes from actual real world experience- not writing blog posts on the ‘Top Ten ways to…’.

Last night I went to our local social media club get-together. We had a good turnout and there were no gurus there. A few job seekers, the CMO and Brand Communications Directors for a major consumer brand company, some consultants (lots of those around these days) and various PR and marketing people. No pontificating, just real conversations about how people are actually using social media. It was refreshing after sifting through all the tweets and blog posts out there by the ‘experts’.

I’m going to state something unequivocally: You are not a social media expert unless you have done social media marketing for actual clients or brands with measurable results that go back at least a year. By measurable results I mean actual sales, turnaround of negative opinion, growth of markets, successful product launches that can be attributed to the use of social media communications, etc. I want to see the numbers in case study format.

If your company is hiring a social media marketing person, this should be your only criteria. Appearing at conferences, blogging of opinions without actual experience, having thousands of followers- these are not indicators of value for your company. They are indicators of someone whose primary interest is their own status as an ‘expert’.