Too Many Gurus, Not Enough Workers

I will start this post today with a fair warning that I am about to rant. So if you aren’t wanting to read this, click here. This morning I was doing my normal routine of talking with people on Twitter when I noticed one of my local friends sending a tweet calling out a local “Social Media” Agency to see if they would respond since they didn’t to his previous tweets over 24 hours ago.

Here’s exactly what the tweet was he sent. As many of you know, I wrote about 7 ways to be hated on Twitter a few months back. And as you can see by Paul’s tweet, they obviously got him a little unhappy. In fact, as I went on reading the discussion that took place, Paul was not alone. Several from around the area chimed in with their displeasure of these types of companies.

After reading his tweet, I immediately took off to investigate this a little bit further. I love the term gurus and love it when companies call themself it. So the first thing I did was open their Twitter account to see how they had been using it. I was very shocked to see they were following at least three of the seven things I had mentioned before about using twitter wrong.

Here Comes the Rant

All of that above was said to get to this point. There are many companies out there that call themself experts and gurus on a subject. Before you hire them based on a flashy presentation or a fancypants website that has glitz and glamour, take a moment to do some investigating of the company. Ask them to show you how they are personally using social media for their own business. Don’t be duped into signing up for a service where they create your accounts & will run them for you. If this happens I can almost guarantee you that the accounts will be set up on automation and no engagement will take place with consumers.

Even more importantly than this, make sure you at least see if they have accounts themselves for their company. Paul started looking more closely at local companies and found three other major businesses in our area that sell “social media packages” that do not even have Twitter accounts set up for their personal business. I find it very diffficult to call yourself a guru and sell a product if you are not using it yourself.

Part II

The second thing that really gets under my skin are those who are wanting to be experts and gurus in social media just because they have used it for a bit and find it enjoyable. What many do not realize is that those brands and businesses that are having success with social media is because they work the various platforms hard and put in countless hours to make it profitable. I know personally for 210 Consulting, I spend anywhere from 10-20 hours a week collectively working on content for our blog, engaging consumers on Twitter, and interacting on Facebook with my connections. While it takes a good amount of time to do this stuff, it has paid off very well for me over the last year as our business has continued to grow each and every month.

Companies who set up accounts and never do anything with them and expect them to create business for them are drinking some special formula Kool-Aid that isn’t going to produce. Too many times everyone wants to have the title, but are unwilling to put the work. Over half the clients I talk to ask me how to automate everything in a coaching session. My response is always the same. You can automate and syndicate your stuff out to everywhere, but it’s basically pointless to do so if nobody reads it and you aren’t there to interact to those who comment.”

Automation is an option and you can use it if you want, but it is so ineffective that I wouldn’t dare use it. It’s the lazy man’s way of doing social media. The person who does their social media marketing this way will eventually turn into the person who sits on the couch all day eating chips watching TV. Eventually you will get to the point where you will be so lazy that you won’t be able to even get up and will mess yourself. Consumers are smart, they are watching and they are paying attention. They know if your brand isn’t actually interacting with consumers. If that happens they aren’t going to connect with you and definitely don’t want to buy your products or services.

So, before you go and hire a guru take some time to check them out & see what they are doing on a regular basis. If you want to see what we do here at 210 Consulting, here’s links to all our profiles:

If anyone would like links to any of our other social media profiles, feel free to ask in the comments below and I will be happy to share.

Here Comes the Rant

Part II

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