Think you’re a social media expert? 10 reasons why you’re wrong

Being into digital marketing isn’t just great. It’s awesome. It’s an ever evolving industry and nothing ever stays the same (especially with social media). I love what I do and have been in the digital marketing space for a couple of years, but lately, I’ve seen many “social media gurus” crowding the online scene. Social media has been trending for a couple of years now and there’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of it, but please don’t give the industry a bad name.

It’s almost the same as when SEO became popular a couple of years ago. Every agency that could design a website all of a sudden had “SEO” services to offer and claiming they had the knowledge and skills to get you to the top on Google. It’s not bad, really it’s not.

It’s business and getting more business from what is trending at the moment is good, but if you are going to do it, don’t give it a negative rap.

Are you a social media guru?
If you are into social media and you are calling yourself a “guru”, do you really understand what you are doing and can you really deliver results? You are not a social media “guru” if you have the ability to create a Facebook business page, Twitter account, and have a couple of social media apps on your smartphone.

If you are guilty of any of the below, please don’t call yourself a “social media guru”.

1. When you call yourself a social media expert, guru or any other made up social media title.
2. You believe it’s all about your Klout score. The higher the score, the more successful you should be — really?
3. You don’t have a website, blog or do any form of digital marketing.
4. You have more than 2 000 followers but have tweeted less than a 100 tweets.
5. You don’t follow a process and strategy with social media for customers. If you don’t have a solid strategy in place, expect random results.
6. If you have one or two customers that your friends referred you to and you think you have made it. It’s great, but that doesn’t mean you have a social media agency. You are a freelancer.
7. You are not active on the social web. There are many people claiming they are social media experts but they don’t even have a personal LinkedIn profile or Twitter account.
8. Not using social media to increase your network and business. If you are not practising what you preach yourself, how can you do it for someone else?
9. Claiming that one social network is better than the other. Disqualifying Google+, Facebook or Twitter as useless because you don’t understand how they work doesn’t help your customers or yourself.
10. Selling bundles of tweets and status updates.

Social media is great and there’s no sign of this trend stopping anytime soon because of the natural and viral nature of this medium.

It’s still growing and evolving everyday. It’s also fun if you are part of a social media campaign, but please, don’t call yourself a social media guru if you fail in a majority of the points above.