I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick to death of hearing people refer to themselves as “Social Media Guru” and “Social Media Expert”. Enough already. The fact is, that I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to actually claim those titles and have them be accurate. Our culture, this technology, and the amazing things people all over the world are doing with it – moves too fast. One cannot be an expert if your field of expertise changes on a minute-by-minute basis. No can do, lovelies.
I really don’t care for the ‘evangelist’ title either, but at least I get that one and I feel it’s more accurate than others, even if it does conjure up images for me of religious fanatics that travel around in circus tents promising to cure people. Wait, maybe that’s exactly the point. Hm. Look at it this way though – if we’re reading and commenting on blogs, updating our status on Facebook, posting photos to Flickr, uploading videos to YouTube, and twittering like our lives depend on it – aren’t we ALL social media evangelists? I think so, even if it’s in a small way. If we’re doing these things, we obviously believe in these things and feel they’re worth our time to do. We may not be preaching the benefits of these things to conference rooms full of people, but we’re walking the walk and that’s the important part.
We’re not ‘experts’ – not any of us. We do the best we can and try to keep up as much as we’re able, but stuff changes fast these days and even if you know pretty much everything there is to know – someone else is doing something new that you’ve never heard about.
Do we call ourselves experts and gurus and evangelists to look cool? To try to stand out among the ever-growing crowd of people using social media? How much do you stand out when everyone and their uncle starts referring to themselves as an expert? Yeah, not much.
Maybe we should focus a little bit more on just doing our best at the things we really love doing. Not because it gets us a crowd of people following us, or worshipping us, but just because it makes *us* happy. Let’s not try to keep up with the Joneses, or the Brogan’s or the Scoble’s – let’s just do our thing and be all about it. It’s not a competition, peeps. Let’s just all do our best at being good people who love what we do.
This post inspired by the quote I’m about to get tattooed on my arm next month -
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi
5 responses so far ↓
tami neuthal // July 19, 2009 at 7:58 am |
Thank you! This is so true. I wish conference organizers would try to promote deeper thinking and sharing of what we’re doing with social media in X (in my case, higher education) rather than let “experts” tell us what should be done.
micala // July 19, 2009 at 2:28 pm |
I completely agree with you! I think this is why it’s so important for us to know what’s going on in all sorts of different places. I’m in higher education too, but I really try to watch what’s going on in business or non-profits because I think we all have a lot to learn from each other.
SEO // September 7, 2009 at 9:48 am |
Although you have your point, I don’t totally agree. Yeah, we use Facebook, we use Twitter, we go to Youtube everyday, actions that make us a Social Media literate. However, that is just one side of the coin. There are more to Social Media that only a few people spend time to explore.
The only downside of that reality is a lot of people can claim they are experts. Social Media is an open field anyway. It’s just like saying, I use Photoshop to edit some of my photos, but I am not an expert, but my friend is. (Anyone can purchase Photoshop and use it.) I surf everyday, but what I surf is different from what you are searching. You know something I don’t know. I know something you don’t know.
Michael Staton // December 14, 2009 at 7:00 pm |
Ugh, I’ve been jaded on Social Media Consultants for a while. It’s crazy to me that people make a lot of money coaching people to use relatively intuitive products. As someone that builds products, the economy around Social Media Guru’s is irrational.
micala // December 14, 2009 at 11:47 pm |
I absolutely, completely agree.
There’s too much going on, too much out there for anyone to be on top of it all. I think there are a lot of people who are extremely passionate about social media and those people are actively using, listening and learning on a daily basis, but I think we’re all just riding the wave and doing the best we can. Experts? Gurus? Hardly – but we are passionate, we do “get it” and we do absolutely love it. 