Watch out, watch out, the Social Media Gurus are about

My post last week on how anyone can be a Social Media Expert got a fair amount of attention (it was one of my most visited blog articles so far). However, I realised after writing it, that I had missed out the other title that these self-promoting social media individuals give themselves.... gurus.

Yes, you only have to sit in a few industry seminars or supplier presentations to know the Social Media Guru’s are in town, and they are here to sell you their wonderful wares and services. They all seem to have appeared overnight, to not only tell us about ‘best practice’ and ‘industry leading examples’, but also to publicly state that they have “been into social media for years” and “have always worked in social media”.

They cite examples such as:

1. Creating forums on websites
   (didn’t we already have newsgroups and bulletin boards back in the 90’s? I guess these were a little too nerdy for these ‘guru’ types)
2. Building websites for years that have linked to social media
   (putting a hyperlink from your linkedin.com profile to your MySpace account in 2005 doesn’t make you an expert!)
3. Working in ‘engaging’ media
   (but being a runner for a shopping channel five years ago isn’t exactly a great expertise needed to run a blogger outreach programme now is it?)

Perhaps there needs to be a qualification for these people to pass. At the very least there needs to be list of things to check before you even consider the services of these people…..