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Five Myths About “No Social Media Experts” Busted

Erik Deckers — Tue, 24 May 2011 17:00:12 +0000

Five Myths About “No Social Media Experts” Busted

Still? We’re still talking about whether there are social media experts?

This argument has reared its ugly head again, when some social media practitioners (frankly, people who I would call experts) have declared that they would never ever hire a social media expert, because there’s no such thing.

It’s interesting how people can declare there are no experts with an air of authority that they just implied doesn’t exist. I’m firmly in the “there are social media experts, so deal with it” camp, and have been talking about this for a couple years now, even arguing with other social media experts about their own existence.

So here are the same five myths I hear over and over, and my response to them.

Myth #1) Social media is new.

Social media is not new. It’s really, really old. It’s older than Kyle Lacy, and it’s even his birthday today.

Social media goes back before the mid-90s when AOL cracked 1 million members. (I became member #832,000-something in 1994).
Social media goes back before the mid-80s when AOL was born.
Social media goes back to the late-70s when BBSes and the Usenet were born.

Social media is at least 30 years old, even if we didn’t call it social media back then. But if you don’t want to accept that BBSes and AOL aren’t early forms of social media, then remember: Facebook is 7 years old, LinkedIn is 8 years old. That’s not new either.

2) Social media is always changing.

Yes, and so is medical science, but we still call doctors medical experts. So is finance, but we still call financial planners experts. So is auto racing, but we still call the engineers experts. So is animal husbandry, but we still — okay, that hasn’t changed since the dawn of time.

The social media tools may change, but the idea of relationship marketing has not. People still don’t want to be screamed at by TV ads, or spammed by, well, spammers. People want to have relationships with their brands. That hasn’t changed.

The only thing in social media that’s changing are the numbers of people joining it. But the idea of “being a valuable resource to your customers,” of “don’t spam people,” of “practice good customer service” has never changed.

3) Social media is just a channel. You can’t be an expert at a channel.

Tell that to the TV advertising guys, tell that to the radio advertising guys. Tell it to people who excel at trade shows, who kick ass at street teams, or are wizards at special events.

Social media may be a channel, but so is every other form of communication we use.

4) Social media is just a tool. You can’t be an expert at a tool.

No one said they were an expert at the tool. You said that’s what we had to be when you said “Malcolm Gladwell says you need 10,000 hours to be an expert.”

Remember, it’s not the tool that’s important, it’s message creation and social psychology. In other words, can you create an effective message? Do you know how your target audience will respond to that message?

A good communicator understands his or her audience, and can tailor a message that will move, inform, educate, or persuade that audience. Journalists know how to write good news stories that people want to watch or listen to (now there’s an industry that’s changing all the time. No one’s whining that there’s no such thing as a news expert.) Marketers know how to create compelling copy that makes people want to buy stuff. TV producers know how write shows that make people want to watch.

5) Malcolm Gladwell says you need 10,000 hours to be an expert.

Oh dear God, he did not! Malcolm Gladwell said if you want to be an outlier, the freak of nature who outshines everyone else, you need 10,000 hours of solid practice. Hence the name of his book, Outliers.

To get 10,000 hours of anything, you need to do it for a full-time job, 40 hours a week, for 5 years. If you’re going to quote the 10,000 hour rule at me, then I’m calling anyone with six or more years of experience at anything an expert.

This Is What An “Expert” Is

To me, a real expert is someone who knows more about something than most other people. Even the dictionary agrees with me: a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field; specialist; authority: a language expert. (Dictionary.com).

An expert is not the person who knows the most, is the best in the world, or has stopped learning new stuff. They know more than the average person. That’s it. They don’t get to wear a sash, they don’t get a parade, they don’t get the best seats in restaurants. They get to say “I know more than most people about this subject,” and that’s it.

My doctor better know more than me. My financial planner better know more than me. Dario Franchitti’s engineer better know more about fixing race cars than anyone in his garage. They don’t have to be the best there is, they just need to know enough to help me succeed at what I (or Dario Franchitti) want to do.

And as long as you know more than most people — at least enough to fill a book — you need to wear the mantle of expert and don’t be a snob about it. Otherwise, you shouldn’t be charging thousands of dollars to speak at an event, and should tell your publisher you don’t know as much as you claimed when you signed your book contract.

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The Need for Social Media Experts Grows

Erik Deckers — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:00:43 +0000

The Need for Social Media Experts Grows

People are starting to trust their peers less and less, according to a report — Who Do You Trust? — from MarketingPower.com.

A lab coat does not automatically make you an expert. But it helps.

Researchers attribute this drop to overfriending. We see it all the time with people on Facebook with a few thousand friends, most of whom were gathered to build an army in Castle Age (guilty!). But all these friends telling us we “should” do this, we “ought” to try that. We can’t really trust anyone anymore.

This means, says MarketingPower.com, that people are starting to trust professionals a little more:

There’s been a decline in trust in a “person like myself.” A “person like yourself” fell from 47% in the 2009 study to 43% in 2011; this represents a steep decline from 2006 levels of 68%. In addition, a regular employee increased in credibility from 32% in 2009 to 34% in 2011. When it comes to the credibility of information, respondents trusted academics or experts [emphasis added — Erik] the most (70%), followed by a technical expert within the company (64%), a financial or industry analyst (53%) and a CEO (50%).

What does this have to do with social media? Basically, it means the need for social media experts is growing, and people don’t want professionals who use goofy titles to avoid the whole social media expert controversy. They want to be able to trust people who are credible and have the information they need — 70% of us want the experts.

If you’re a consumer-level trainer, like Patric Welch (aka Mr. Noobie), you’re highly sought out by noobies who are looking for basic answers on how to use Facebook and Twitter, how to write blogs, or how to research, buy, and use digital cameras and laptops. These beginners want someone they can trust, because that person has high credibility. They don’t want ninjas, gurus, superheroes, or surgeons, they want experts. In short, if you’re not an expert, or your Memaw’s favorite grandson who knows a lot about “Facespace,” they’re not going to hire you.
Although the data points to individual trust, this kind of thinking is also starting to find its way into the workplace. People are beginning to look to colleagues and associates within their professional networks. We’ve already seen the growth of the use of LinkedIn, reading industry blogs, or looking to their Twitter feed for professional advice, and the use of “real” experts is starting to grow. If you’re still playing at being a social media guru or shaman, companies are not going to call you.
Websites and print publications want experts to write for them, conferences want experts to speak to them. They need people who know what they’re doing, and have demonstrated their knowledge and understanding of the issues. This is not the time and place to use goofy titles. While it will work within our industry, when you talk to people outside the industry, they don’t get our cute little quirks and they don’t understand the whole expert/not-an-expert debate.

Trust is becoming more important to people, especially in the business world. Social media as a whole is all about user-generated content. We form opinions and make buying decisions by reading reviews and comments from our friends, and even strangers. But this may give way to, ever so slightly, to the need for independent experts who have a lot of information, and are willing to share it.

Photo credit: Fawksy (Flickr)

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What Does It Take to be a Social Media Expert?

Erik Deckers — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:00:20 +0000

What Does It Take to be a Social Media Expert?

My friend, Hazel Walker, wrote a blog post recently about how “Anyone With a Book Can Call Themselves an Expert,” and we were discussing it over coffee

“Uh, you know my book launch is tonight, right?”

She did know, but said it wasn’t books like mine that she was talking about, it was the self-published kind. “Anyone can self-publish a book, and anyone can regurgitate stuff someone else said. That doesn’t make them an expert,” she said.

Hazel’s gripe was about the proliferation of social media experts who are springing on the scene, armed with a few dozen hours of using the necessary tools, thinking this somehow made them an expert.

My mother, age 72, has decided that she is a social media expert. Heck why not, she uses Facebook, and has for about 6 months, she tells all her friends how to use it, when is the best time of day to use it, why it’s important to use it, and on and on. All things considered she has as much experience as many out there calling themselves an expert.

I agree with Hazel on this. Her mom notwithstanding, there are too many people who are eager to call themselves an expert when they’re not even an enthusiastic amateur. This prompts other people to rant against the faux experts (fauxperts?), which makes the real experts hesitant to adopt that mantle in the first place.

It’s a shame really.

There are some really smart, bright people who have earned the term “social media expert,” but they’ve been scared out of using it because other people are snarky, or just downright brutal, to the “fauxperts.” The real experts don’t want to get caught in the crossfire, so they eschew the title they deserve.

So what does a social media expert have that the non-expert does not have?

More than five years experience in creating effective messages that educate, persuade, or inspire. The more, the better.
More than five years of understanding their target market/audience (social psychology, and how their messages affect that audience.
More than five years spent creating strategies and executing them. Not just executing someone else’s strategy, and doing someone else’s grunt work. You created the strategy, then you executed it.
Has frequent speaking engagements to industry groups about their knowledge and experience.
A lot more knowledge than their customers, including the ones that keep up with social media.
A regular publishing schedule of thoughts, news, and research on a blog that’s older than a year. Even better, a regular publishing schedule of their thoughts, their news, and their research.
A breadth of experiences, responsibilities, and first-hand knowledge from a variety of jobs. They don’t still have the same job they got after college, five years ago.
Enough knowledge about social media message creation and social psychology that can, and hopefully does, fill a book.
Paying clients.

This last point is probably the most important one. Printing out cards at a cheap overnight business card service doesn’t make you an expert. Being hired by your mom’s Pilates friend to create a Twitter account for her dried flower arrangement business doesn’t mean you have clients. You need to make a living at this. It’s not a sideline, and not a hobby. It’s not something you decided to do because you’re having trouble finding a job. It’s not a fallback option because you didn’t get into bartending school.

Also, notice I didn’t mention any specific tools, any scores, analytics, etc. For one thing, numbers can be gamed; value and reach are earned. For another, the real expert doesn’t rely on the tools, they rely on their network. And they would have that network if they were using Twitter, Facebook, or a 7-year-old email newsletter. The tools are constantly changing and evolving, some are dying, while others are growing (anyone remember AOL’s heyday?). So why put all your stock in the tool, when it’s the connections you need?

Being an expert is all about real-life experience and real-life work. It’s not about numbers and networks, it’s about what you can do with them.

I think the real social media experts need to man up (or woman up), step up, and assume the title. Don’t let the snarky people scare you off. Don’t adopt this falsely humble, “aw shucks, I’m not smart enough to be an expert” attitude. If you’ve been in the persuasion business for more than five years, you can start calling yourself an expert. Everyone else in every other field is calling themselves an expert in their job. Why should the charlatans and fakers scare you off?

They need to stop being scared off by those people who heard someone once say “there are no social media experts” and are now parroting it like it’s gospel; the people who think social media is rapidly changing, but no other industry in the world is; the people who think social media is brand new, forgetting that Facebook started in 2004, LinkedIn started in 2003, blogging has been around since 1994, and AOL was actually one of the first social media networks. Since the mid 1980s.

(And for those people who are going to say, “Nuh-uh, Malcolm Gladwell says you need 10,000 hours to be an expert,” please go actually read the book. He said you need 10,000 hours to be an outlier, not an expert. The outlier is that person who is outstanding in their field — Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, Bobby Fisher, Bill Gates — the expert is the person who knows a hell of a lot about their field, but may never rise to the level of the outliers.)

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available on Amazon.com, as well as at Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy.

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Do You Know Where to Tap the Hammer?

Erik Deckers — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:00:47 +0000

Do You Know Where to Tap the Hammer?

A parable.

A business owner is horrified to discover one morning that her company’s server is broken. Won’t boot up, won’t turn on. She calls a computer repair expert to come out and see what he can do.

The expert shows up, looks at the machine carefully, and even gives it a careful listen. He runs his fingers lightly on the side of the computer, and then taps it with a small hammer. The computer starts right up, the business owner is happy, and the expert goes away.

If I had this hammer, man, I could fix ANYTHING!

Two days later, the expert’s bill shows up. “Computer repair, $500,” it says.

The business owner calls up the expert, angry. “$500?! All you did was tap the computer, and you charged me $500?! I need to see an itemized version of your bill, to see why you thought that was worth $500.”

Two days later, the new bill arrives in the mail. “Tapping the computer with a hammer, $1. Knowing where to tap it, $499.”

The Moral

Once, I was talking to a freelance writer friend, and she was worried about charging too much for her services.

“I don’t see how I can charge that much an hour, just to write a single press release,” she said, like she was worried she would be found out as a fraud, or that people would realize anyone could do it.

“Do you have special knowledge that enables you to write that press release in under an hour?”

“Oh sure, I’ve done so many of these, I can write them in 30 minutes sometimes.”

“And do you think your clients could write that same release in under an hour?”

“No, they take 3 or 4 hours to write one.”

So I told her the computer hammer story.

“You know where to tap the computer,” I said. “Your job seems easy to you because you’ve done it for years. But to someone who has never done it, it seems daunting. But then if they see how easy it is for you, they assume it’s that easy for anyone. But if they don’t know how to do it, it’s still a mystery.”

What can you do better than anyone else? What is a special piece of knowledge that you have that could be valuable to someone else? What are you putting your energy and time into?

For me, it’s writing. For Lorraine Ball, it’s PR for small businesses. For Paul D’Andrea, it’s portraits and event photography.

For us hammer tappers, we’re always learning new stuff, new tools and techniques, new ways of doing things.

Knowing where to tap the hammer is what sets us apart from those of us who will try the same things over and over — flipping the computer off and on, trying it in different plugs, shaking it — before declaring it impossible to finish.

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy, who I also helped write Twitter Marketing For Dummies (another affiliate link).

Photo credit: KyleMay (Flickr)

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Watch Out For Bad Social Media Consultants

Erik Deckers — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:00:18 +0000

Watch Out For Bad Social Media Consultants

There are a lot of bad social media consultants out there.

Some of them are just downright awful. I’ve often said that once the economy recovers and the bartenders and waiters go back to work, there will be a lot fewer social media consultants.

I can’t wait for that to happen.

The problem is that these bad social media consultants are just putting out bad information, using poor or unethical practices, and casting social media marketing in a bad light.

What happens is the bad consultants try some half-cocked idea based on poor information, and the campaign ultimately fails. The customer is left believing that social media is a bad idea, rather than realizing that the consultant didn’t know squat about marketing, social media or otherwise.

I know of one social media marketing agency in the Midwest that is guilty of this kind of behavior. Not only do they refuse to use Twitter, they tell their clients not to use it because their part of the state is “years behind” the rest of the state, and that by the time the population catches up with the major cities, all us city folk will have moved on to something else.

All this tells me is that the agency owner is unwilling to use Twitter, doesn’t want to bother with it, and probably doesn’t know enough about it to actually be useful. But rather than admit it, or even, oh I don’t know, try to learn how to use Twitter (for example, by reading Twitter Marketing For Dummies (affiliate link)), he would rather tell people their customers are too backwoodsy and stuck in the 20th century to use Twitter.

Social media marketing is not about the social media tools, it’s about knowing enough about marketing and PR to know how to use the tools properly.

I don’t care if you spent hundreds of hours on Facebook, or that you gamed Twitter to get 30,000 followers in 30 days. That just means you played a lot of Farmville and you know how to sign up for Twitter spam sites. That doesn’t mean you know how to actually create persuasive messages that reach your target audience.

Social media marketing involves knowing how to create effective messages that reach your chosen target audience, not holding parties to drive up “likes” on a client’s Facebook page. It means you know how to use the major tools available to the rest of the industry, even if you don’t recommend clients use them. It means you actually have an inkling about marketing, and know how to harness social media to get your message across.

If you don’t know how to do something, admit it. Better yet, learn it so you can be a better resource to your clients. But don’t try to pass off willful ignorance and a lack of knowledge as actual expertise. I don’t pour a Scotch neat and call myself a bartender; don’t spend three months playing Mafia Wars and call yourself a social media professional.

——
My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy, who I also helped write Twitter Marketing For Dummies (another affiliate link).

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Tools Don’t Make The Expert, Knowledge Does

Erik Deckers — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:00:50 +0000

Tools Don’t Make The Expert, Knowledge Does

Chris Brogan said something in his Hemingway’s Pencils post last week that really hit my hot button:

No one ever asked Hemingway which pencils he used to write his books. The tools aren’t the thing. The effort and the content and the promotion and the connection and the networking and the building value are the thing.

This is an important distinction as people still equate the knowledge and experience of using social media tools with the quality of the work someone does, and whether they can call themselves a social media expert.

I have used Moleskine notebooks and Pilot G-2 pens for over six or seven years. I have used computers to write since 1986. I have gone through hundreds of legal pads. But none of this makes me a good writer. Knowing the best words to use to convey an idea, knowing how to construct sentences for maximum impact, knowing how to string ideas together, knowing how to tell a story. Those are the things that make me a good writer.

However, to listen to some of the “no social media experts” crowd, it’s the amount of time that I have used my writing tools that make me a good writer. And to hear their argument, I lose my expertise each time I switch to a different writing tool. Switch from pen to computer? Start all over, your pen writing knowledge is useless.

The point is that it doesn’t matter how long I have used a tool, it’s what I do with those tools that make me an expert. It’s not how long I have owned a particular pen, or if I switch to a different brand of notebook (as if). It’s the knowledge and experience that I bring to my writing that does it.

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Time to Stop Misapplying the 10,000 Hour Rule

Erik Deckers — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:00:43 +0000

Time to Stop Misapplying the 10,000 Hour Rule

I’ve been thinking about the whole “it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert” thing, and I’ve come to one conclusion:

Most people are getting it wrong.

If you’re quoting it at me, especially in terms of business or technology, you’re taking it out of context.

The 10,000 hour rule comes from Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers (affiliate link). The rule applies to people who have reached extraordinary success in their chosen field, whether it’s football, golf, chess, violin, hockey, computers, etc.

It’s about people who stand out as the best of the best, because they spent 10,000 hours practicing their skills, while the “still pretty damn good” crowd only spent 8,000 hours.

Here’s where people get it wrong: Gladwell did not say that if you want to be good, if you want to be an expert, at something, you have to spend 10,000 hours doing it (which is about 4 hours a day, every day, for almost 7 years).

But people continually misquote the rule (mostly because they haven’t read the book), and then misapply it to the use of tools.

“If you haven’t used these tools for 10,000 hours, then you can’t call yourself an expert,” they say.

That’s what is commonly known in the business world as “a load of crap.”

Tying expertise into time spent using a tool is just plain stupid. If I want an expert carpenter to build a deck for my house, I’m not looking for a guy who has spent 10,000 hours swinging a hammer. I want a guy who has spent 10,000 hours building things.

If a contractor has spent 10,000 hours swinging a hammer, but can’t measure and cut to save his life, then I don’t want him. If he doesn’t know to use treated lumber, or that we need concrete pilings below the frost line, which is ~~42″~~ 36″ in Central Indiana, then I don’t want him. If he’s an expert at using a tool, but can’t see the bigger picture, he’s the wrong guy to build my deck. (Update: The frost line is 36″ in Indiana. Thanks to Chris for pointing out the error.)

I’d rather have the guy who has spent a lot of time building things, whether it’s decks, houses, barns, or pergolas. That’s someone who knows how to use the tools he’s got. He’s not an expert at pounding nails, he’s an expert at creating. He knows the material, he knows joinery technique, he knows which fasteners work best. The tools don’t matter — he could use a hammer and a hand saw, or a nail gun and a chop saw — it’s what he builds with them that matters.

The same is true in the business setting. The expert is not someone who has spent 10,000 hours using a particular tool or a piece of software. The expert is someone who knows their subject matter, knows how to use it to their customers’ advantage, and and can properly use the tools to create something great with them.

The expert is the person who can use their skills and knowledge to make a profitable and successful business. They write books. They give talks. They are paid to apply their skills and knowledge. They are not experts because they spent 5 – 10 years using a particular piece of software. They’re experts because they know how to do great things with it, even if they’ve only used it for a year.

It’s time to stop labeling people as experts or non-experts through the misapplication of some misquoted rule meant only to apply to the astonishingly-skilled in a specialized field. It’s time to look at a person’s results and successes, not a time card.

Photo credit: Simpologist (Flickr)

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Making the Argument for Ghost Blogging. Yet Again.

Erik Deckers — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:00:32 +0000

Making the Argument for Ghost Blogging. Yet Again.

My good friend Lindsay Manfredi and I were both interviewed about ghost blogging last week, and asked whether we thought it carried any ethical dilemmas.

The answer is no, it doesn’t. Not if it’s done correctly.

I’ve talked about ghost blogging before, and said if it follows a few basic procedures, it’s as ethical as, say, public relations. (Er, on second thought. . . )

Yet, the issue keeps getting brought up, as if we’re committing some unpardonable ethical sin, like medical testing on baby seals. But the only people who seem to care are social media purists and “social media ninjas” who talk about transparency, yet work in industries where their efforts, if done correctly, are anonymous and behind the scenes as well.

Ghostwriting = copywriting

Anyone who does freelance copywriting can tell you that their name doesn’t go on squat when it comes to their efforts. Sales brochures, web copy, sales letters, speeches, you name it, the writer’s name is not-so-noticeably absent from the final copy. And that’s fine. That’s the life we choose.

Marketing agencies don’t get their names on their clients’ campaigns. No one whines that “my name isn’t on that sales brochure I wrote” or “my name isn’t in the newspaper article I sent the press release about.” Frankly, if you’re worried about getting credit for your work, you’re in the wrong business. If you want a byline, be a journalist.

Maintaining Ethical Boundaries for Ghost Blogging

A good ghost has procedures they follow with their clients:

I interview the client, who tells me — in his own words — his thoughts about their industry-specific issues.
I transcribe the interview and clean it up, turning it into 350 – 450 words of clear, informative copy.
The client approves the article.
I publish the article on their blog.

It’s the clients thoughts, the client’s words. I just transcribe it. Or as we like to say, “we do the work so you can go to your meetings.”

How is this any different from the CEO’s letter at the front of the company’s annual report? Or a politician’s speech to her constituents? Or the catalog copy that was supposedly written by the company’s founder? How is it any different from a PR flak’s press release that becomes the basis for a news article? (I say this as a former flak whose press releases were often turned into “Staff Wire Reports” by one county newspaper.)

Answer: It isn’t. Not a bit. They are exactly the same thing. (In fact, Jason Falls says that we’re not ghostwriters, we’re copywriters, and that it’s okay.)

These are the same steps that every other copywriter, speechwriter, and marketing director in the world follows when they produce work for a client. This has been an acceptable practice since well before Judson Welliver ghosted for Warren G. Harding, thus becoming the first presidential speechwriter.

The only place ghostwriting isn’t acceptable is journalism and academia, as it should be. Your merit is based on the work you produce; in business, it’s based on the results you achieve. (Although academia seems to have some of its own ghostwriting issues.)

So if you are against ghost blogging, you need to be against all ghostwriting. You need to speak out against speechwriters for politicians. You need to put an end to all freelance copywriting. You need to stop sending out press releases that don’t include your name as a quoted source.

Otherwise, it’s a non-issue. The people who hire me are the ones I’m concerned with. The social media purists? Well, you just give me something to blog about, thus boosting my own search engine rankings.

So, thanks for that.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : Making the Argument for Ghost Blogging. Yet Again. • Keywords : blogging, ghostwriting, Social Media, social media experts •

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Rethinking Social Media Experts

Erik Deckers — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:07:49 +0000

Rethinking Social Media Experts

(Originally posted on DeckersMarketing.com on August 17, 2009.)

A few days ago, I wrote that we need to rethink this whole “there’s no such thing as social media experts” nonsense.

The argument, as stated by some non-social media people, is something to the effect of:

Malcolm Gladwell says you have to do something for 10,000 hours to be an expert.
Social media tools like Twitter are not 10,000 hours old.
You can’t have used Twitter for 10,000 hours.
Therefore, there are no social media experts.

This is utter bullshit.

Most of the NSME (“no social media experts”) crowd seem to think it’s the use, knowledge, and experience of the tools that make one an expert. The tools are not important. The tools are just tools. Real expertise lies in two other areas: message creation and social psychology. That is, what to say, and how it will affect your chosen audience/group.

(Big thanks to my friend Lalita Amos, author of the now-famous N-Word Manifesto, for helping me come up with this idea. A never-long-enough meeting with her launched my brain in this direction. She deserves the credit for pushing it off that way.)

Speak to the dog, in the language of the dog, about things that matter to the heart of the dog.

Marketing relies strongly on those other two areas. The true social media experts are actually reformed marketers and PR pros. They’re Message Experts. They know how to create strong messages, and they know how those messages affect their targeted groups. They’re not tool experts. They’re not necessarily experts at graphic design, TV and radio production, or website creation. They hire the people who are. They focus strictly on making the best possible message.

Similarly, they’re Social Psychology experts. They know how a message will affect their target audience, and how and when to change the message for a different audience. They know they can’t just throw a message out there and hope for the best. They can, as I like to say, speak to the dog, in the language of the dog, about things that matter to the heart of the dog. The good marketer/PR pro speaks Dog. They may not be a dog, but they speak it as a second language.

The Tools Don’t Make the Carpenter

Norm Abram, the master carpenter on PBS’ New Yankee Workshop and This Old House, learned how to build houses and woodworking projects from his dad. Norm is old enough that his father taught him these skills on hand tools. Norm’s dad built houses using a hammer, hand saws, drills, and block planes. So Norm learned how to use these tools.

However, as Norm got older, he began to use power tools. Now, on his show, he has about 10 routers, multiple power drills, and enough nail guns to start a war with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. His dad, on the other hand, never made that jump, until after he retired.

One time when his dad was visiting for several days, Norm taught his dad how to use the tools.. He had never used routers or table saws before, so this was a brand new experience for him. But after a few days, he was up to speed on these new tools, and was creating projects with the same quality and skill he had been doing with block planes and hand saws.

According to the NSME crowd, Norm’s dad would no longer have been an expert, because he hadn’t spent 10,000 hours using those tools, as if all the knowledge had flown out of his head.

However, it wasn’t the knowledge of these new tools that made Norm’s dad a master carpenter, it was the knowledge of how to make straight cuts and fasten pieces of wood together. For his dad, it was the decades of knowledge of joinery techniques (message) and how to assemble the wood into functional pieces of furniture that would be appealing to people (social psychology).

Those Who Can’t Do, Coach

Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule is about people who have a freakish level of mastery of their chosen skill. They’re the Peyton Mannings, Michael Jordans, and Tiger Woods of the world. They have a level of expertise in all three circles. They’ve got expertise in the tools, the “message,” and the “social psychology.”

Peyton Manning has the tools, the message, and the social psychology. He’s 6’4″ with the laser rocket arm, he has a mastery of all the plays in the playbooks, and knows how other teams will react to the plays they will run (he does this by studying game film with an almost compulsive obsession. So Peyton Manning is obviously a 10,000 hour expert.

But what about Clyde Christensen? He’s the new offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts. Clyde has never played professional football (he was a QB at North Carolina University), but he has been a coach since 1979. He doesn’t have the same tools as our laser-rocket-armed quarterback, but he knows as much about the plays and what the other teams are going to do. Similarly, Larry Coyer, the Colts’ defensive coordinator, knows what his defense needs to do when the other teams look like they’re going to run certain plays.

Neither of them have the tools that their players do, or if they did, they don’t anymore. But they’re masters of the other two.

That’s where the real expertise lies. Not in the tools, but in the knowledge of the other two areas.

For the real social media experts, and there are more of those than the social media haters realize, we know about proper messaging, and we know how to package that message to our different target audiences. The tools we use just make our lives easier.

Five years ago, we had to communicate with websites and emails. Fifteen years ago, we communicated with TV and radio commercials. Twenty years ago, we communicated with newspaper ads. And while we had experts in creating content for those tools, the important knowledge — messaging and psychology — has remained the same.

Until the tools become so wildly different that messaging and social psychology has to change with it, we need to accept the fact that there are real social media experts in the world, and we know what we’re talking about.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : Rethinking Social Media Experts • Keywords : Malcolm Gladwell, Social Media, social media experts •

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Yes Virginia, There Are Social Media EXPERTS

Erik Deckers — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:45:45 +0000

Yes Virginia, There Are Social Media EXPERTS

(Originally published on DeckersMarketing.com on August 14, 2009)

I’ve been thinking about the whole “there’s no such thing as social media experts” argument lately.

I’ve decided it’s wrong. It’s utter crap. I no longer believe it, and think the people who believe it are just parroting someone else they heard say it and thought it sounded cool.

We’ve heard this “no such thing” argument from a lot of people, including me, who all sound like a bunch of 8-year-olds fighting on the playground.

“Nuh-uh! Social media isn’t even 10,000 hours old. Malcolm Gladwell says you have to have 10,000 hours of experience to be an expert!”

Fair enough. Malcolm Gladwell’s idea that if you want to have a true mastery of a skill, you need 10,000 hours of work, practice, and study in that field.

However, keep in mind that this is to be a superstar in your field. The Michael Jordans, the Peyton Mannings, the Tiger Woods. If you want to be that good, then yes, you have to have 10,000 hours or more of practice.

But what about to be just “decent?” To be better than most? You don’t have to be better than everyone, you just have to be better than your clients, your colleagues, or the people who just invited you to speak to their trade association for a few thousand bucks. (Do you really want to tell those guys you’re not really an expert?)

Think about it. Do you truly have 10,000 hours of experience in your chosen field? If you’re a public speaker, have you given 10,000 1-hour speeches? If you’re in public relations and you consider yourself a good press release writer, have you truly written press releases for 10,000 hours? And how many years would it take to rack up 10,000 hours of experience as a professional photographer? (Measure it in 1/60th of a second increments.)

Let’s face it, there aren’t that many experts in any field. The 10,000 hour commandment we’ve all accepted as gospel from St. Malcolm is not appropriate for us.

My friend Doug Karr decided it was a load of bullshit last month, and has a new definition for an expert.

Peter Shankman has a big list about ways to tell if your social media expert is not really an expert. (My favorite: 5. Everything they learned about social media they learned by reading blog posts (i.e. no application). You can learn a ton about sex from reading Kinsey’s manuals, but I’d still rather be with someone who has some practical experience.

So I think we need a new standard when calling ourselves an expert, whether it’s social media, public relations, photographer, etc. And it’s a simple, 4-question survey. If you can answer yes to all four of these questions, you’re an expert. If you can’t, well, then get back to work until you can.

Do you know more about your tool/method/equipment than most people? Would you be graded on the 90th percentile or even 95th percentile in terms of knowledge?
Can you speak intelligently about the application and usage of that tool/method/equipment? Are you asked to give presentations and/or teach others about it?
Have you written extensively about that tool/method/equipment? Have you published articles, blog posts, or even books on the subject? Do you have an extensive body of work that demonstrates your knowledge?
Are you generally recognized by your peers as having some authority and credibility in this subject? Does your name come up frequently when someone asks, “who knows a lot about?”

If you can’t answer yes to these questions, it doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve spent on that subject. I can think of six people who I would gladly hang the label “social media expert” on, because they can answer “hell, yes!” to each of these questions.

To the people who put “social media expert” in the same “no such thing” camp as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, get over yourselves. Just because no one is recognizing you as an expert doesn’t mean you have to get all snarky about the ones who really are.

I’m with you when it comes to booting out the so-called experts who have only been using Facebook for six months, and that’s to play Pirate Clan. But when you’ve got people who are truly well-versed on the tools, don’t give me this “10,000 hour” bullshit when it just doesn’t apply in this case.

It doesn’t matter if these tools are less than five years old. It’s not the tool that matters. The tool is useless and pointless, and it doesn’t make you an expert.

Knowing what messages to send and how your message and those tools will affect a group (social psychology) is where the expertise lies. In a few days, I’ll be writing about how knowing how to use the tools is not nearly as important as knowing what messages to send and the social psychology of a group is where the true expertise lies.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : Yes Virginia, There Are Social Media EXPERTS • Keywords : Doug Karr, Malcolm Gladwell, Social Media, social media experts, social networking •

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