Why We Don’t Believe in Social “Experts”

Here's the thing. Many, many, many people do social marketing of some kind for a brand. Maybe it's their mom's sister's nephew's small business, maybe it's a Fortune 500 company. Some people even succeed at writing engaging content for brands and–gasp–measuring the return on investment for their clients.

But let's be clear; this does not an expert make.

Social media has been around since 2001 (roughly) but continues to rapidly change every day. Not only do platforms get new targeting capabilities and visual improvements, they get new ad formats and insights and–well, you get the idea. So when someone calls herself a "guru" or an "expert," it induces a bit of eye-rolling. 

The truth is that to be an "expert" in anything, you have to make it your life's work. Not 2 or 3 or even 8 years. If Mark Zuckerberg decides to call himself a social media expert, I'll buy it. But he knows better. It's not about being an expert, after all. It's about being a student of social, learning all the new platforms and innovating new ways to leverage them on behalf of your brand or your client's brand. 

So let's stop kidding ourselves and stop using words like "expert" and "guru" or even "ninja." Instead, let's just say we're passionate about learning in this space and convey that through our work.