During my head-bobbing experience which wouldn’t allow me to sleep much I was thinking about my last blog post regarding Social Media Experts/Gurus and how they seem to be popping up everywhere.  The thought that kept me ruminating on the post was that there aren’t many professed SEO experts or guru’s that have only been around a few months. Why?, Check it out;

1. SEO isn’t something you learn overnight.  SEO is continually changing and it’s not something you “jump into” and call yourself an expert.  There is On-Page SEO (an art in itself) with no-follow rules, internal page linking strategies and all of the associated tags.  There is Off-Page SEO (which includes Social Media) requiring back link strategies, bookmarking, authority acquisition and content development strategies to support your On-page SEO. Most importantly, you actually have to prove that you can get results.
2. SEO is more science than marketing.  You can’t wave your arms extolling the benefits of transparency with fancy terms such as “media assets can be created on various platforms to increase your reach and interaction”.  SEO is working with raw data, interpreting the effects, testing and implementing additional strategies to get results – lather, rinse, repeat.  Social Media will be a contributor, however, I haven’t seen Social Media lower an average site Alexa rank 25,000 spots within a couple of months.
3. SEO isn’t for the weak or timid.  You charge a client money and you better get results – more traffic, more visitors, more conversions and have the numbers and knowledge to back it up and adjust to get predictable outcomes.  Social Media is engagement and testing messages but rarely do you see intensive backend tracking for social media campaigns – unless they were truly a social media expert/guru.

Tracking and numbers are everything and social media, to me, is very much a part of the overall plan for a company or a client; however, it must be measured for it’s overall effectiveness based on the client’s needs, products and audience.

I think a better term for anyone in the industry would be to stay away from being a Social Media Expert/Guru and become an Online Marketing student working to become an expert.  Learn all of the various ways to get a client tangible results that bring traffic, conversions and revenues that can be tracked back to all of your online campaigns. Learn how to adjust a complete campaign not just one aspect of the campaign (i.e. Social Media).  Those who take this approach and get extremely good at it will be the ones who will be revered as the complete package in the online world and will never have to look for work even in a recession.

A good article by Shoemoney – SEO vs Social Media

Oh yeah, and I will blog about DEMO too which was an incredible experience!

I attended Alex Mandossian’s reunion this past weekend at the Marriott in Millbrae.

A great event and Alex is a fantastic speaker.  There were numerous take-aways such as productivity, mental strengthening and much more.  The disappointment I experienced was from a standpoint of expectation.  I thought there would be much more about the “nuts and bolts” and how to get various aspects of systems in place to get traction in your business and on the internet.

I do agree though, you need the mental piece because without it, the “how-to’s” don’t matter.

The experiential nature of the event was good, however, it was very much geared to gratuitous networking and self-promotion.  Not that I’m opposed to it, but being a first timer I was a little taken aback and definitely not prepared to have 150 business cards to hand out and have my “pitch” honed to attract buyers (previous attendees were well prepared with special cards designed for the event).

The most interesting thing I am finding at events, like Alex’s, today are the number of “social media experts”.  I’m tired of hearing of another social media guru.  Anyone who has been on Facebook for the past 9 months is now a social media expert,  anyone who has been able to build their way to a 10,000 or greater following on twitter (which can be gamed extensively) is now a social media guru, anyone who lost their job in the past year is now a social media expert/guru.

I’m excited about the future of where we are going but social media experts should understand that social media is more than just Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and various other places online to attack users with bad marketing messages.  I recently met a 9 month social media guru who was giving talks, booking speaking engagements and teaching groups how to “find their voice” online and in social media circles without having any idea of how to actually engage their audience to get traction and achieve results.

Social media is going to need some major overhauls to clear out the experts, gurus and riff-raff that might know something about social media but have no idea how to develop an overall online strategy to use all aspects of marketing, message development, traffic development, on-page/off-page SEO, website development and a comprehensive plan to fully engage their audience beyond just social media.  Social media is a place for transparent, interactive and engaging relationships and conversations but it should not be treated as the final frontier for monetization.

I look forward to the day I can go to a seminar and the social media guru’s I meet are really social media guru’s.

Here is a link to Aaron’s blog/video post – http://www.theaaronist.com/regarding-social-media-experts/

And here is the video – good stuff!!

Regarding “Social Media Experts” from Aaron Lewis on Vimeo.

Best viewed by zooming and dragging the screen to see the detail and each logo is clickable so you can jump right to their site (how cool is that – interactive too!).

Brian Solis is one of the co-creators of this Infographic – I have been involved with sponsoring some tweetups in Silicon Valley he attended. Brian knows his stuff and knows Social Media. In the land of Social Media Snake Oil (where eveyone is an expert…) Brian is the real deal.

This, of course, has some folks up in arms about safety but what does this say about Social Media? We hear that it is a passing fad and perhaps this whole Social Media thing will finally blow over and we can get back to business. But is it?

This new development from Ford seems to suggest the exact opposite of Social Media being a fad or a passing moment on the internet. But it does make sense from one perspective, Scott Monty, uber social media guru, is the Social Media Head at Ford and very much engaged in building the Social Media presence at one of the oldest brands in the world. Scott has done some “experiments” with Social Media while at Ford so far and it looks like they are getting some traction (ROI is debatable).

So, I would love to hear from you – Is Social Media a passing fad or do you have some personal concrete experience and examples to share that indicate Social Media is integral to our lives and also to businesses?

A quote from Mike Wesch about the Video & the research:

Nobody there was blindly optimistic, thinking technology was going to make everything better. They were all continually trying to figure out where we are, where we might be going, and the possible downsides and dangers of new technologies so we can use the new technologies to serve human purposes.

For anyone who is really truly engaged in Social Media or is driving to create meaningful conversations online should watch this video. If you are just online to spam marketing messages, spam comments for backlinks or “game the system: i.e. Google & others” then this isn’t for you. But wait, yes it is…actually it is more for the spammers and “hit and run” marketing message droppers than anyone else.

This is the best 33 minutes I have spent online in long time.

The internet is evolving and so are we as communicators and information-a-holics. Prior to the internet we had the one-way conversation of the TV only. And the shaping it does to our minds, trends and pop culture is unrivaled until now.

I truly believe we will see the internet eclipse the TV because of the interaction, conversation and authenticity that can now flow from one to many or from many to many.

News is not just News anymore online – it becomes a conversation – albeit a vulgar and juvenile one at times but none the less a conversation that can breathe and give life to a story, event or occurrence.

The video by Mike Wesch, of The Machine is Us/ing Us Fame with over 10 million views and counting, really asks some questions that many of us are not considering but should be given that the internet is playing a HUGE role in our lives and the lives of billions around the planet.

Social Media and the internet have a place now and we have personal control of where it goes and how we choose to interact with it and others. We will always have the juvenile and immature behavior online but we also have a chance to really make decisions to be authentic and connect like we have never had a chance to before.

We can now connect without;

- feeling subconscious
- someone laughing in our faces
- telling us that our thoughts or ideas are irrelevant, or worse – stupid
- feeling the repercussions of revealing more than we would normally reveal face-to-face

This opens up huge opportunities to be authentic and supportive of each other thereby creating new conversations and communities that would have never been formed due to the potential for the lack of authenticity from a one-way conversation (TV), a face-to-face conversation or the distance that would normally separate us geographically.

We all now have a chance to create communities and be something more than what we may show, say or act like when at work, home, school or other face-to-face social situation.

Watch the video and then start your journey to be authentic, be real, create new conversations and create new communities. And then we can potentially create a new future of what social media can truly become.

An article from UBERCEO speaks to the marked absence of tweeting CEO’s and calls them slackers:

We looked at Fortune’s 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs to determine how many were using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, or had a blog. The results show a miserable level of engagement. Here are the topline results:

• Only two CEOs have Twitter accounts.
• 13 CEOs have LinkedIn profiles, and of those only three have more than 10 connections.
• 81% of CEOs don’t have a personal Facebook page.
• Three quarters of the CEOs have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those have limited or outdated information.
• Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog.

Social Media is now ingrained in the fabric of our interaction with each other as well as our interaction with companies and brands. Meeting someone new prompts a search and social media profiles, if present, are typically the main content that will rise to the first page of the engines.

Not only is Social Media engaging and controllable by the profile creator it also allows for “meeting others where they are”. Instead of “requiring” others to seek out information on a deeper level (i.e. find the corporate website and dig through the About Us page or Management page) you can get a quick snapshot of not only a CEO’s profile but also their personality as they engage others.

The other aspect that makes social media engaging and allows the type of interaction that would never happen is the “accessibility factor”. I tweeted Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco, and he tweeted me back and then even sent me a Direct Message. My chances of interacting directly with the mayor of San Francisco were practically nil unless I was prepared to engage in a concerted effort to meet him. Twitter gave me quick access to what he was engaged in at that moment and allowed me to “connect” with him on a specific, and potentially fleeting, topic.

Social Media can be a tool that will allow a more personal connection with many CEO’s and companies that seem untouchable. It can also allow your voice to be heard by the top dogs via a channel that was never available until the services (twitter, facebook et al) hit critical mass. CEO’s that are socially disengaged have a lot to gain via social media channels and connecting at a deeper level.

I went on a double date with my wife and some friends last night and we documented the fun on Facebook. Before we had even arrived at the restaurant we already had 2 comments related to the photo I posted of us driving there. Many more rolled in throughout the night. Not historical or groundbreaking but definitely indicates that communication as we know it is changing rapidly.

My mom even follows my Facebook updates because she lives in Colorado and it’s the most up-to-date place she can see what is happening in our lives and to see the latest photos of her grandkids (no phone call required).

With my iPhone I can take a photo and add a caption within about 60 – 120 seconds and update my twitter and facebook accounts. No cables, no downloading to a laptop, no waiting = Realformation!

Clay Shirky is a master at pulling it all together and this video depicts real time and extremely impactful examples of how this medium can literally elect a president and begin to change countries policies about realformation. Enjoy…and get engaged.