The economy has impacted every single industry. In recent weeks, I have heard of layoffs at a local rehab hospital. Even the “untouchable” healthcare industry is being affected. The only booming job sector is for the people that actually do the laying off. Speaking of which, what exactly are the qualifications for that job? A sub-zero heart temperature?
When the economy first began to slide into the deep and ugly spiral that we have found ourselves in, rumors spread through the social media sphere about how corporate America would drop the bomb on traditional advertising and marketing budgets with shady ROI in favor of social media marketing in hopes of much smaller budgets with much larger brand impact.
And with this rumored influx of cash to the social media sphere, so began the “social media gold rush.” Headed west (figuratively) these newly professional millennials and middle managers struggling to stay relevant polished up their Web 2.0 speak to make a name for themselves and would take a few bucks from anyone who needed help setting up their Twitter account or cover up some embarrassing MySpace pics.
While eager to take advantage of this new financial opportunity, it became clear very quickly that the vast majority of this group was far too eager to don their new “social media guru” title on their resume, linkedin profile, twitter page and facebook info. They became little more than modern day snake oil salesman when their skills and professional creds just weren’t up to snuff.
The sad truth for many of these wannabe gurus is that just because you grew up with Facebook and were a Twitter early adopter, that doesn’t mean any of that knowledge is immediately transferable to the business world. You may be able to fool a few and sell them on your services, but as the economy continues its slide and each penny is even more closely watched than the last, only the real Web Strategists will survive.
The impact of this recession has played an interesting part in the evolution of the social media guru role. Unlike recessions in the past, there was no huge bubble or explosive downfall. The truth is that the trickle down effect of this recession has had most businesses running extremely lean for about 6 months now. Under those conditions, anyone that wasn’t able to clearly and immediately justify their value earned themselves a spot at the front of the like to get the axe.
While social media budgets ARE still being cut just as much as traditional marketing budgets, I think it is fair to say that it is at least easier to determine the real gurus from the snake oil salesman. With the extra financial pressure for a clear ROI, if you can’t prove your value, you aren’t going to make a living and will already have polished up your resume with a brand new set of skills.
In case you still aren’t sure who you are dealing with before hiring a social media consultant, Web Worker Daily has compiled a great starting point for questions to ask before offering any contracts.
Harsh but true. Although, mellennials are often targeted with this kind of criticism, I find the opposite to be true.
The real “snake oil salesmen” tend to be 40+ professionals that noticed their kids on MySpace one day back in 2005, decided to drop everything, eat-up and disseminate every buzzword that hits the net, adopt and relentlessly promote every unproven web 2.0 technology so long as it had an exotic name and provided them with a new set of curious jargon to toss around, and in some extreme cases, publish ridiculous books on the subject. This bought them the right to be considered tech-savvy amongst their extremely un-tech-savvy circle.
Twitter = @christopherott
This isn’t about the generation gap. With anything new, there are those that were there to create it and those that are there to leverage it. Not so different than the internet bubble when everyone could create a website and be called an expert. I saw people create their personal web page and then get top paying jobs as web masters. They were in completely different roles like finance. Additionally, I wouldn’t say that most of the social media marketing efforts so far have been that successful. It is really just getting off the ground. So who is the expert?
What I would look for in an expert is the ability to leverage solid and extensive marketing experience and have a proper mindset to integrate social media into the mix. You can hire great creative people to build the assets. If someone only had social media expertise, I’d run. You need the big picture.