If You Think Social Media Will Solve Your Problems

Then I’d like to sell you some plans for a cold fusion reactor to solve all of your energy needs! At only $999,995, it’s a steal!

But, in all seroiusness, no business in the world should want a social media expert on their team because being an expert in social media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. It’s easy. The hard part is pulling a scooby and shaggy and making an amazing sandwich with that bread. And you can’t do that if all you’ve ever done is take the bread out of the refrigerator.

The reality is that social media is just another facet of marketing and customer service and IT’S STILL ABOUT GENERATING REVENUE THROUGH SOLID MARKETING AND STELLAR CUSTOMER SERVICE, JUST LIKE IT’S BEEN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME.

Thank you, Peter Shankman for this wonderful article on why I will never, ever hire a “social media expert”! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Thank you!

Facebook is not worth 100 Billion. There’s no revenue in poking, prodding, tagging, flagging, and flailing around with a thousand people you never met. And Twitter certainly isn’t worth almost 10 Billion either. I don’t care that you thought that new spicy foods restaurant on the corner was the greatest ever until you ended up with food poisoning and spent the night worshipping the porcelain alter (which you described in glory detail, 140 characters at a time). Anyone who thinks these sites are worth billions is a nutjob still throwing off his clothes and running naked in the rain, waving his hands in the air, sure that this time it’ll be different, because this time it’s better! A whacko. A total loon.

And anyone who thinks you need a “Social Media Expert” to understand Facebook, Twitter, GroupOn, etc. is just as crazy. We should listen to Douglas Adams, round them all up, along with the wall street executives, politicians, and paper-pushing middle managers, and send them away on a spaceship just like the Golgafrinchans did. We’d be better off for it if we did. (Except we’ll learn their lesson and keep the “telephone sanitizers” because, let’s face it, some guys just won’t scrub their own telephones. [If you don’t get why, brush up on the history of the term.])

In the mean time, SI will never be hiring a “social media expert” either. And you should really, really check out Peter Shankman‘s wonderful article on why I will never, ever hire a “social media expert”! It made my day.