“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”  – Ferris Bueller

In this rapidly changing online marketing world, things are happening faster now then ever before.  Not since the advent of the website has online marketing been so revolutionary.  With fast pace comes all the bad stuff that goes with it including a crop of self proclaimed experts trying to charge you for services.  Right now, the Google search phrase, “social media expert” yields over 1.4 million results.  

How in the world do you select a good social media consultant with results like that?  Can someone please explain to me how you can be an “expert” in an emerging field?  I’m not aware of any sanctioning body, educational curriculum, or designation as of yet.  Is there one?  I’d like to know as I certainly don’t know it all.  

The catalyst for this article is the web designer of one of my video clients.  It took them 2 weeks to figure out how to embed a YouTube video on my client’s website.  When I went to go check them out, I was surprised to see that they were, “Social Media Experts”.   Their marketing tool was a PDF that you could print out to call them.  They had no Blog, no Twitter account, no Facebook Fan Page, no LinkedIn account.  They had absolutely zero commitment in social media for their own business, but they felt qualified to charge YOU to help your company with social media. 

Later that same day my phone rang.  The guy told me that my measly number of Twitter followers was never going to get me any business, and he could get me 20,000 followers in 2 months for $500.00.  I checked him out.  He had 24,500 Twitter followers.  He had tweeted 50 times over 5 months.  Every tweet was spam – “I’ll get you more followers, check out www……….com”.  I told him to take me off his list. 

So here’s the lesson.  If someone calls you and tells you, for example,  that they know how to get you 20,000 followers on Twitter, RUN, don’t walk, run away fast.  Additionally, the number of followers *they* have on any social network is not a designation of ability.  There are 3^rd party Twitter programs that will automatically build you up to 20K followers in a short period of time. 

But SO WHAT!  Having a bunch of hollow followers will not increase your sales.  Know one thing, Social Media is a marathon, not a sprint.  It takes time (read that, a lot of time) to build a lot of followers that actually care about what you are saying, and will help your message go viral by re-tweeting, re-posting, or sending more traffic to your site. 

So how do you select a Social Media Consultant?  Check THEM out.  Look past their advertised number of followers and see what they actually have to say.  Are they engaging, or just spamming the networks with their sales pitch.  A good Social Networking strategy for business has a 90:10 ratio.  You give 90% to get 10%.  Some would go as far as saying it’s 95:5.  Are they giving, or just taking?

Social Networking is about transparency.  Consumers want to know who they are dealing with.  The number one rule for marketing this decade is trust.  How do you build trust?  By generating content on an ongoing basis that is interesting, engaging, and original.  When you make it clear to your audience that you know your stuff, they will keep coming back to see what you have to say.  Over time, this builds trust, and trust generates real followers, and real followers will become clients. 

So, is the social media expert that just offered to charge you $XXXX doing this for their own firm?  What are they blogging about?  What are they saying on Twitter?  On Facebook?  Would you want to follow them?  Are they even there?  It’s a litmus test, if they can’t prove they understand social media for their own business, how are they going to help you?

Am I a Social Media Expert?  No!  But I do practice what I preach, I don’t think I know it all, and I attend many conferences every year with some of the country’s best speakers to continuously learn more.  I don’t call myself an expert, and I’m not a trailblazer who spends every waking moment online trying to figure out what the next big app is going to be.  I’m in business to make money, so I stay where the people are, and I don’t stress out about what I might be missing – it’s not sexy, but it works. 

There are many good resources out there that can help your business succeed at Social Media.  The purpose of this post is to warn you that, like many other things, for every good 1, there’s 10 out there selling snake oil.  Caveat Emptor – Let the buyer beware.  In the case of selecting a social media consultant, it’s NOT all in the numbers.

I just followed you, and I don’t blindly follow people.  That means you went through some level of screening process.  It might have been just a quick look at your last 20 Tweets to see if you have anything interesting to say.  Or, it might have been a deeper look – including a look at your bio, perhaps even your website, and a glance at your Followers to Following ratio.

So if I end up following you, you just passed a test.  I invested time in you.  The LAST thing I want from you is an instant DM Spam message with a sales pitch.  This is your one way ticket to getting UNfollowed. 

You need to realize that Social Networking has the word “Social” in it.  Not “Auto Networking”,  ….. Social Networking.  Try spelling it out loud, S-O-C-I-A-L ….. You get the point.  Or do you?

The people in the screen capture to the right didn’t.  I blindly followed 100 people with a test account to illustrate a point.  Almost 50% greeted me with auto DM  spam.  #Justsayin

Times have changed.  The days of cramming your sales pitch down the throats of others is over.  Instead of Auto DM Spamming someone as your very first “connection” with them, why don’t you send them a message with a personal touch.   Refer to them by name, or something on their website.  This way they’ll know you actually invested time in them, and not just the typical, “Thanks for following me, I look forward to your Tweets.”  You are better off sending nothing at all, and engaging them later. 

So if your goal is a million followers (and it shouldn’t be, but that’s another post altogether) try Engaging people, try interacting with them.  Do something nice for someone else and stop thinking that everyone is interested in your message (read that, “sales pitch”)

So check me out.  Put ME through the test.  If you think I have something interesting to say, Follow ME, and hopefully, I will follow you back.

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