What is a Social Media Expert?

There’s been a lot of buzz recently in the twittersphere and world of blogging about the explosion of so-called “social media experts.”  Everyone seems to be branding themselves an “expert” in something, and it leads to the question of just what it all means, especially in this blog with regards to the context of what a “LinkedIn Expert” is.  Today I will cover “Social Media Experts” in general while my next blog post will look at “LinkedIn Experts” in particular.

First of all, if you missed it, there was an excellent article yesterday on “6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Brand Yourself as a Social Media Expert” by Dan Schawbel, the author of Me 2.0.  This is highly recommend reading, and I would like to start this article with comments on what Dan wrote about.  A note that Dan approaches the question, rightfully so, from a branding perspective.  In other words, when you call yourself an “expert”, you are branding yourself by telling others that is the light in which you want to be seen.  I guess the first question, then, is do you really want to brand yourself in this way?  Here is why Dan thinks you shouldn’t: (with my own comments after the bold)

1. You Can’t Stand Out. This is true. With the explosion of social media, with 200 million Facebook users and 40 million LinkedIn users, it is no wonder that so many people call themselves an “expert” in these fields. Social media is accelerating the democratization of information as well as expertise. But, because differentiating yourself is inherent in branding yourself, a “social media expert” may not be a good brand to have anymore.  It is no longer unique.
2. What is a Social Media Expert? Dan is trying to make a point here that an expert is someone with proven results.  While in general I agree with this, the definition of “proven results” is up for interpretation.
3. There are No Barriers to Entry.  Absolutely!  This is the new Internet revolution.  The first revolution, in the 90s, gave us all equal access to the information.  Now, with Web 2.0, we are creating and controlling the content.  Anyone with an understanding of social media can do this.  And that is the point of Web 2.0 – the democratization of the web.
4. You Can’t Command a Premium Salary.  I start to disagree with Dan here.  Just because you are branded as an expert, does it necessarily mean that you are trying to monetize that expertise?  I think not.  But if you do want to monetize your “expertise” Dan makes a great point.
5. It Is Impossible to Measure Your Role.   This is true to some extent. I think calculating ROI for social media expertise is obviously tricky.  It comes down to success stories, and lots of them.  But once again, the issue for this really depends on what your objective is in branding yourself an “expert”.
6. When Everyone in the World is a Social Media Expert it Loses Meaning.  Dan is bang on.  But, you know, there are lots of SEO experts and blog experts…why shouldn’t that be the same about social media?  At some point in time, when being a social media “expert” really does lose meaning (would you label yourself a Microsoft Office expert today, even though you are an expert in it?), we will stop seeing the branding.  I think that this year has been a year of explosive growth for social media, and thus the “experts” are truly growing.  However, once people stop paying money for this expertise, the “expert” label will truly start to lose meaning.  That hasn’t happened yet.

What does this all mean?  Before I provide my own definition of a “social media expert”, let’s first see how Wikipedia defines “expert”:

“An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well distinguished domain.”

With that in mind, in order to truly be a Social Media Expert, you need to be:

1. Recognized as being a reliable source of information and accorded authority by the public. Recognition can come in many forms: companies hire you, people buy your books, your blogs are read by lots of people, many people subscribe to your tweets, people seek you out on LinkedIn to gain your expertise.  Note, as long as you are “recognized” it doesn’t matter whether or not you are monetizing this expertise.
2. Provide something unique that is of value beyond the “mechanics” of social media. The days of being an expert just because you knew the mechanics of a social media site are over.  With membership doubling on Facebook and LinkedIn (and increasing exponentially on Twitter), it is a given that as an expert that you know the “mechanics” of these sites.  But what is your unique contribution to society?  Dan Schawbel has branded himself and contributed something unique to all of us in his “Personal Branding Expert for Gen-Y” brand and writings.  Mr. or Mrs. Social Media Expert, what is your contribution?  Which leads me to…
3. True social media experts are leaders and not followers. If you are just regurgitating what others are saying, you may have gained expertise, but I would not call you an expert.  Assuming that you have been recognized as being someone with authority and have contributed something unique to our understanding of social media, are you a true leader?  In the case of social media, it means sometimes going out on a limb and disagreeing with prevalent opinions on the topic.  It means carving your own path regardless of what others say or what the current trend is.

I find many web posts on social media equating that expertise with the previous ability to monetize it or the track record of having x number of B2B success stories.  I am not saying that you should fork down money for consulting from someone who calls himself an “expert” without looking at their “track record”.  But the “track record” may be misleading; after all, was it their work, or the original “brand”, that made them successful?  And to repeat Dan, it’s hard to measure ROI of social media.  Either way, if you are looking to hire an “expert”, it is a business decision like any other where you will need to do your homework and determine whether or not there is value or not.

What I am saying, in conclusion, is that I expect a social media expert to be a thought leader and truly enlighten us.

As always, I look forward to your comments and your own definitions.