The rapid growth of social media in recent times has been a blessing and a curse for the folks that have been fighting for recognition of its value over the last decade.

It used to be that ’social networking’, ‘blog marketing’ and ‘grassroots PR’, as they were referred to for some time, were afterthoughts in marketing meetings…and optional line items in marketing budgets. Blogs were exciting to talk about, and people felt like there could be some secret voodoo on MySpace, but past that there never seemed to be enough dollars or gumption to actually invest in any of it. Not a great time to be an upstart digging deep on the new information horizon.

Things have clearly changed. We used to take meetings with marketing coordinators to try to show value in the concept of social and hope it floated up the food chain. Now C-level executives rightfully want face time - to see whose eyes and ears will be driving strategy on behalf of their organization on the ground floor.   Now social is a primary part of the overall conversation for short and long term planning. Blessing.

Clearly there’s your upside - recognition, interest, and a serious investment in what many of us have seen value in for years. Of course, with any upside, there’s….chicanery. Especially when there’s $ on the table. There seems to be a lot of it going on, by way of marketing hucksters doing everything they can to jump on the bandwagon and cash in on the social media goldmine. This is detrimental on many fronts - pointedly obvious to me are the marketing budgets depleted by empty promises and the bad name it gives true social media practitioners who take the work we do very seriously. Curse.

There are many variations of what I’m calling social media chicanery, but there seem to be two main pillars holding up the fort:

Snake Oil Salesman

These are the most obvious offenders. More direct, lots of flashing lights and banners. Promises of X number of fans for Y dollars, ways to gain X Twitter followers in Y months if you spend Z dollars.

There are three outcomes that can result from a service like this. Two are possible, one is not.

1. Complete scam - you enter your credit card info, sign up, maybe get a little boost in your numbers, and never hear from anyone again.
2. It works - these organizations have built up a wide network of disingenuous accounts on major social networking sites. Whether the accounts are real folks getting paid as part of a pyramid scheme hybrid, or completely fictitious accounts altogether. Still, it works, and your numbers go up exactly as planned.
3. It works, and this actually provides value to your organization

The reason #3 will never work is simple - you can’t buy influence. The “following” you are acquiring in this case isn’t interested in what you have to say or the products you are shilling. They won’t provide valuable feedback for your crowdsourcing aspirations, and they’re not going to turn online interaction into the offline movement you know your organization needs to achieve a legitimate return on investment for your efforts.

Truth be told, you can buy perceived influence this way. And in some cases, that perception could eventually gain you the following and influence you’re really looking for. Bringing us to the second version of social media chicanery…

Charlatans

My parents are both math teachers and two absolutely brilliant minds. So I’m sensitive to any criticism of educators. But there’s an unfounded cliche I’ve heard many times about teachers that plays well when translated to this industry. I like to say, “Those who can do, those who can’t tweet about it.”

I could write pages about what I mean by that, but it’s already been done better than I could. Read up on The Brand Builder’s More Buyer Beware: Social Media Roles and Titles are Marketing too, so far in the running for my favorite piece written in 2010. I implore you to read every word, but long story short some of us are a little unnerved by how easy it is for anyone with a Twitter account and a title to claim to be an expert in social media…and taken seriously as a result.

This has really hit home for a lot of us the more and more old world folks sensed the social media dollar blood in the marketing budget waters. Which is all well and good and I happen to know some exceptional practitioners in traditional environments who really get the space and have been doing it for years. But what we find more often than not is what I call “death by buzzword frenzy”. The mathematical equation for this approach looks like this:

[Saying words like "influencer", "engagement", "leverage", or "advocacy" a LOT] - [any sense of thought or experience behind the words] = [established authority in social media]

Illustrated best over at the tongue-in-cheek WhatThe****IsMySocialMediaStrategy.com. Illustrated worst at a webinar, seminar, tweetinar, and pitch deck coming to a town near you.

The Question

The question becomes, what’s worse? Charlatans or Snake Oil Salesman?

From an the standpoint of impact on the industry I’d have to say the Charlatans. Most folks are hip enough to see through the snake oil, and there’s a lot more muscle behind the Charlatan side of the chicanery.

From an ethical standpoint that’s a more interesting question perhaps better left up to the comments section below. Weigh in, please. Would love to hear some thoughts.

The Answer

There’s no quick fix here, and we’d be dreaming if we expected one. This is no different than what we’ve seen in the search industry with white hat vs. black hat, etc. It exists in every industry. It’s just that this seems to be accelerating at a much faster pace and having a more profound impact on how seriously true professionals in the space are taken.

Defining this problem is easy - providing solutions to it is a little more challenging.  In a best effort, some thoughts on moving forward in the right direction.

Client Side

• Ignore the titles. Know who you’re working with and what experience they really have.
• Ignore the buzzwords and ask for real examples from the past and clear explanation of plans for the future. In Einstein’s words, ‘If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.’”
• Trust your instincts. No matter how blue in the face someone across the table is while lauding their own expertise, your gut will say a lot about how sincere those statements are.
• If someone calls themselves a “social media expert,” raise a mental red flag for yourself.

Agency Side

• Don’t succumb to the pressure. It’s easy to see the chicanery and the dollar signs and put 2 and 2 together. The higher road may be a longer one, but it’s going to get you there right on time.
• Know your priorities. We all know about the cobbler’s children, but really your client’s objectives are more important. You’re more valuable learning more about your craft than you are discussing what you’ve learned.
• Lastly, and key: Remember that the essence of social media is not about self promotion it’s about providing value. This is what we tell our clients and prospective clients they should understand about the space. Buzzwords and bogus service offerings aren’t providing value. There’s so much more we can be offering.