The Epitome of Faux “Social Media Experts”
Posted by Nick O'Neill on April 16th, 2008 12:42 PMThis afternoon I received a new twitter follower that goes by the name “mediaexpert”. I have posted a Twitter screenshot of her profile below (if it’s even a her). By the time I checked out her profile, I realized that she had already added and interacted with local D.C. social media expert, Doug March. Now I may be an aggressive self-promoter but this person takes the cake. I have seen a number of people like this but Ms. “Social Media Expert” has absolutely no idea what social media is about.
She has posted a background image on her Twitter profile of practically every “Web 2.0″ startup she could find. One of her tweets states that she is giving a presentation on “what social media can do for organizations.” Whoever she is, she should definitely not be the one advising organizations as she is going to walk them down a plank. Her horrible profile doesn’t stop at her background image.
She fails to place her name on her profile, she links to Myspace.com as her website (trust me it’s not … it’s owned by a small company called News Corp) and her bio describes herself as a “social media expert.” As I wrote about this morning, Andrew Keen states how anybody can tout themselves as an expert in today’s age of social media. You just need to be loud and opinionated. All I can say is that I feel bad for whomever she is speaking to next week (if she really is).
While I have been known for aggressively promoting myself, I have at least personally met at one point most of the contacts in my social media life. If I haven’t, I have reached out to them directly and privately to learn more about them. Social media is not about counting your friends on Facebook or Twitter, it’s about making connections with real people. If you came up and poked me without me knowing you, I would most definitely remember not to interact with you in the future.
Go say hi to the social media expert on Twitter. I definitely hope she is not the future of this industry.
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Nick, you should show up and video punkd her if she is speaking in DC.
it is just like people claiming to be SEO experts because they got on page one of google for some lame keyword... ;)
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Did you see the interchange between her and Doug?
He writes: dammit - when will it ever stop? http://twitter.com/mediaexpert - get a clue people, a twitter account does not make you an expert.
And then she responds: @marchdoe play nice with me and I will play nice with you.
This is freakin' amazing. Since when did they let all the crazy people out of the psych wards? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty obsessed with the social web -- it's what I wrote my master's thesis on and what I'll research for my PhD -- but people are taking this stuff just a little too far. I *completely* agree with your frustration over people like this girl Nick.
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I am not sure I can live up to your label.
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Feel free to call yourself anything b/c that's the world we live in :) Hopefully you don't call yourself a medical doctor though ;)
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Kathleen Lisson
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I recently wrote about this very topic, The Social Media Expert Plague.
It seems more and more there is this emergence of two worlds colliding: those that are social on the web and those that profit from social activity on the web. I at least like that she is both building connections and using Twitter in the way it was intended. I get annoyed with the spammers that essentially use Twitter as an RSS feed and auto-twitter everything.
Hell, i am waiting for the application that auto-Twitters when I've twittered.
@mediaexpert represents a decline in the social web and this emerging force could be the death of open social media with a push to more closed door, invite-only applications that are slowly becoming more and more popular in the forum world. Forums will one of the first social media outlets and for the past decade have become so over saturated with noise that the best are now elitist invite-only environments.
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Twitter is hard?!?! I just HAVE to hire this girl. She is a social media philosopher. Just look at this nugget: "I am thinking that Twitter is like RSS for Life." Brilliant.
The funny thing is that she is going to get a ton of followers that just want to see the stupid things she says.
Some of my other favorites:
I have 69 Followers *giggles*
does anyone still use mybloglog?
Maybe I should have just bought a Twitter account on eBay. Like joining a Fraternity in college? Just buy friends?
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Seriously, if I can't profit from being me then what's the point? It's possible to be part of the conversation as well as occasionally influencing it.
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I have always felt that calling yourself a social media expert should hold as much weight as a teenage girl calling herself a "telecom" expert.
@joshcarr6 - go ahead and follow me if you want to read some dumb stuff
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Must say I wholeheartedly agree with you,...
At the end of the day, One can call oneself anything, its when it comes to delivering....that is the tell
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It's easy to find daily inspiration for the feed on Twitter.
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so what do we call twitter spam then?
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