Who, or what, is a Social Media Expert?

Many businesses have cited low cost as a reason for moving more toward social media presence. Many businesses are actively recruiting ‘Social Media Experts’, and at a senior level.

What are these experts worth as businesses scramble to get a social media presence launched? Someone has placed a figure on it. $94,600 a year for a “Community Manager” that gets this community management completed in 30 hours a week. While this is an overall view of the social arena, it does place a monetary figure on this position, and gives a baseline to work from.

What are the requirements of a Social Media executive? It doesn’t appear to have a lot to do with Social media. The word social is only mentioned in the title and once in the body of the posting buried in a requirement along with design, and video. Do they want someone to design custom Facebook pages [Which is a skill-set in and of itself since FB decided to use a proprietary FBML language and not standard HTML] and craft tweets [a copywriter]? Do they need Facebook apps built and deployed [Application Development]? Do they need all of this? Do they really know or are they just convinced that they must have a Social Media Executive on staff to be able to tell clients that they do? It also seems as though prior agency experience is a huge contributing factor in being able to fulfill social media expectations in this particular case.

All of this social media is just a part of the larger marketing picture. Just because someone has a Facebook page and a Twitter account does that make them an expert at social media? I would assume not, but let me know if I am wrong. How does this Social Expert fit into the over all marketing strategy? Should this person be partitioned off from the rest of the marketing staff from a knowledge and expertise perspective? Should social media gurus, rock-stars, mavens, and divas come from an over-all marketing background and not just be some sort of niche subject matter expert? At this point in time what is that defines a social media expert? Is it like 1996 and if you know what HTML stands for you are a web expert? At the time, I guess that was the definition. It may be true today in social media.

If you can land a 30 hr. a week job making $94K, congratulations. You are a social media expert, although some might call you a great salesperson.

More later on why some folks say that they would never hire a social media expert and a counterpoint on why businesses should hire a social media expert…

Tod O'Brien
Director of Creative Services
One Eyed Dog Productions
www.oneeyeddog.com