Hawaiʻi's Technology and New Media Community
Social Media Expert
I recently met a social media expert at a local gathering. To protect his identity, we will call him Ring Tail Lemur.
Me: "What do you do?"
Ring Tail Lemur: "I'm a social media consultant."
Me: "Interesting. What sort of work do you do with social media?"
Ring Tail Lemur: "I have lots of friends on Facebook and I tell them about my customers' products."
Me: (friendly joking) "I'm sure that makes you very popular."
Ring Tail Lemur: (serious face) "Yes, well. I think they like it."
...long uncomfortable silence...
Me: "Cool."
Me: "What do you do?"
Ring Tail Lemur: "I'm a social media consultant."
Me: "Interesting. What sort of work do you do with social media?"
Ring Tail Lemur: "I have lots of friends on Facebook and I tell them about my customers' products."
Me: (friendly joking) "I'm sure that makes you very popular."
Ring Tail Lemur: (serious face) "Yes, well. I think they like it."
...long uncomfortable silence...
Me: "Cool."
Tags: ring tail lemur, social media
Views: 18
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Joe Philipson on -
Self proclaimed Social Media Consultants make me wanna puke
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Permalink Reply by Stephen McMahon on -
Yeah! A Social Media Consultant! Yeah, dats da ticket!
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Permalink Reply by Alex Salkever on -
You should be nice to social media consultants. After all they fuel this Facebook page building madness that gives geeks work. Frankly, I sometimes think the geeks sit around and make up ways to convince (fill in type) consultants that they need to (x) which requires coding. It's a neat trick, no? BTW, can any of you do a Twitter ap for my new social media company?
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Permalink Reply by Stephen McMahon on
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Hey Alex, I've actually been looking for a good reason to build a Twitter application. I'd be interested in hearing more about it.
Stephen
stephen /at/ slmcmahon /dot/ com
Alex Salkever said:You should be nice to social media consultants. After all they fuel this Facebook page building madness that gives geeks work. Frankly, I sometimes think the geeks sit around and make up ways to convince (fill in type) consultants that they need to (x) which requires coding. It's a neat trick, no? BTW, can any of you do a Twitter ap for my new social media company?
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Permalink Reply by Nate Sanders on -
Haha, this is a great post. I've had long discussions with so many of my friends about the barrier-to-entry in calling yourself a certain thing. Usually the title we've ended up discussing the most is "artist". There are just way too many people who consider themselves artists, and it appears like it's probably the same with "Social Media Expert". People want to belong and to have titles, without actually performing the work necessary to deserve the title. The equivalent in my world are probably crackpot mathematicians, which are few and far between, and ridiculously easily exposed. The less objective the topic, the harder it is to expose someone, but I'm pretty sure you just did it.
BTW, "To protect his identity, we will call him Ring Tail Lemur.", has surely never been uttered previously in the history of mankind.
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Permalink Reply by Viil on -
That sounds familiar...
For someone who have built and facilitated online communities, researched computer supported collaboration and online self presentation, and studied human computer interaction, virtual teams, communication theories, usability and sociability of collaborative computer systems (I could go on, but it would make this sentence even more illegible) for over a decade it is rather awkward to see people who have 6 months experience as facebook and twitter users call themselves social media experts.
Well, there I got that off my chest :) Have a wonderful weekend everyone :)
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Permalink Reply by Viil on
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If you haven't read it yet you might find this article on "Economic Experts" interesting "Learning How to Think - NYTimes.com" http://bit.ly/qKPnK
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on -
Great article Viil. A few of my favorite excerpts:
1. "The predictions of experts were, on average, only a tiny bit better than random guesses — the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board."
2. "In one experiment, clinical psychologists did no better than their secretaries in their diagnoses. "
3. "...a white rat in a maze repeatedly beat groups of Yale undergraduates in understanding the optimal way to get food dropped in the maze."
On an unrelated note, has anyone else noticed that heavy Twitter users often write shorter posts, even when using platforms that don't impose character limits? I wonder if making this observation makes me a social media expert.
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on
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One of our most popular packages is a two week consulting block that both enhances your XML synergy and provides webolicious viral multipliers with zero chance of getting digital herpes. Call me.
Alex Salkever said:You should be nice to social media consultants. After all they fuel this Facebook page building madness that gives geeks work. Frankly, I sometimes think the geeks sit around and make up ways to convince (fill in type) consultants that they need to (x) which requires coding. It's a neat trick, no? BTW, can any of you do a Twitter ap for my new social media company?
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Permalink Reply by Dan Zelikman on -
Hilarious! You should have invited him to our panel! ;) By the way, I hope this SM expert isn't on TechHui, LOL!
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Permalink Reply by Alex Salkever on
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I was actually joking. That said, lots of interesting twitter apps coming out right now that are not just another lame social thing. Interesting games, interesting ways for people to share information, essentially all like SMS on steroids. I am talking to a Twitter developer and have an idea for an app. The thing is, barriers to entry in Twitter apps are zero, less than zero, so its much more about marketing -- then again, isn't that the definition of Web 2.0 B2C?
Stephen McMahon said:Hey Alex, I've actually been looking for a good reason to build a Twitter application. I'd be interested in hearing more about it.
Stephen
stephen /at/ slmcmahon /dot/ com
Alex Salkever said:You should be nice to social media consultants. After all they fuel this Facebook page building madness that gives geeks work. Frankly, I sometimes think the geeks sit around and make up ways to convince (fill in type) consultants that they need to (x) which requires coding. It's a neat trick, no? BTW, can any of you do a Twitter ap for my new social media company?
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Permalink Reply by Alex Salkever on
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Put me on the hottiealarmclock and you can be any kind of expert you wanna be, dude. :)
Daniel Leuck said:Great article Viil. A few of my favorite excerpts:
1. "The predictions of experts were, on average, only a tiny bit better than random guesses — the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board."
2. "In one experiment, clinical psychologists did no better than their secretaries in their diagnoses. "
3. "...a white rat in a maze repeatedly beat groups of Yale undergraduates in understanding the optimal way to get food dropped in the maze."
On an unrelated note, has anyone else noticed that heavy Twitter users often write shorter posts, even when using platforms that don't impose character limits? I wonder if making this observation makes me a social media expert.
© 2013 Created by Daniel Leuck.
