What’s Wrong With Social Media Consultants

I don’t advertise that I do this type of work – if you looked at my personal social presences, you’d really have to drill down to make your way here.

The reason is simple – everyone and their brother/sister is a “social media consultant” these days, and I don’t think being another “guy who Twitters about Twitter” is of particular value.

It’s a lot of hot air to me and the space is a hotbed of talkers and scammers.

I’d reference the person I talked about in this post as part of that problem, as well as someone who recently started following me on Twitter.

They’ll remain unidentified here, but this was in their profile description.

I create businesses, products, and client solutions for you via social media strategies.

Here’s my reaction to that statement – what in the world are you talking about?

Could you be more generic and vague? (While trying to seem impressive and powerful?)

I don’t want to sit here and complain, but a lot of my time recently has been spent defending my approach to potential clients who want me to promise them the world.

Often I find myself saying things like, “Well, starting a Twitter account and selling 100,000 units by next week isn’t going to happen, but let’s look at some options for what might be possible.”

When “Social Media Consultant X” offers up the mythical “100,000 Unit Promise” and a bunch of social media mumbo-jumbo about having presences on 15 networks and blah, blah, blah…it sounds impressive.

My point is that what’s so exciting about social tools – that there are very few 100% proven strategical paths to success – is also a hitch in the culture of it.

When nobody knows anything, it’s easy to say anything and make it sound good.