Would you trust someone to produce advertisements for television because they can use your remote control?
Would you hire someone to do print ads based on whether they could read a magazine?
Of course not, that seems ridiculous, because everyone knows that television and print ads take a lot of skill, training, and expertise to produce.
But look at most classified ads for a “Social Media Guru” and you’ll find that they are looking for people with 0-3 years of experience. Many companies think that they can hire a kid out of college to manage social media because they are regularly on Facebook, Twitter, or write a blog. People become gurus after lives of dedication and experience. Most kids using social media are just being kids.
This points to a fundamental mistake that ability to use a communications platform equates to expertise and knowledge to build and engage communities in meaningful ways. Kids are naturals with social media because their profiles serve as extensions of their real-world identities. They help establish reputations, build trust, and provide the most convenient and efficient way to connect and communicate.
Kids don’t say to themselves “I am going to use social media now”—it is just something that they do. It feels natural and intuitive. And it doesn’t to people in charge at most companies. Some executives have trouble with sending emails and organizing online calendars. Social media is counterintuitive, awkward, and makes them nervous. And because they don’t understand how it works, anyone who can effortlessly use social media must clearly be a guru.
Social media requires strategy and planning, creativity and innovation, as well as consistency of messaging and community moderation. It collapses the roles of PR, marketing, and customer service into a fluid communication medium that demands real-time participation and dialogue. Each comment, tweet, status update, like, or other action delivers a branded message to tens of thousands of people. Social media engagement is more akin to public speaking than it is simply using a computer. The stakes are simply too high to hand over the keys to the Ferrari to anyone who can drive.
Brands need to properly hire people they trust to speak on their behalf. People who can plan and execute a campaign, quantify ROI and creatively incentivize word-of-mouth, and drive real results. Having an active social media presence is just what kids do these days but it’s not enough – chances are if you think 400 Facebook friends makes someone a social media guru, it might just mean you are becoming old.
