I got into a small fuss on Facebook when I posted this article entitled "Why I will Never, Ever Hire a Social Media Expert"
http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar&articleID=540067032&ids=0TdzcQdzoMd3kIcP0RdjkPc3gRb30Sc38Qe3APdiMOcP0Tdz0Md3kIcjkTdPwUejcR&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod-b-ttle-96
While overstated, its basic premise is that many "social media experts" don't know real marketing, and act as if having a blog and a Facebook fan page is all you need to find fortune and fame with your business.
While the reaction was "every profession has its frauds", I still think theres a basic truth here: there are a lot of "experts" who are anything but, and who will offer to guide you to Nirvana, for a small fee, when the only place they can guide you is off the face of a cliff. I have met a few, at Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, and so have you. The fact that every business group, such as the Chamber, HAD to sponsor a seminar on social media some months back - not on what it is, but on how it will accelerate your business, before they even knew what your business was - confirmed this.
When I started my business 20 years ago, marketing people pounced on newbies with "you have to have a logo, matching colors on your business cards and letterhead, three-fold brochures, yadda-yadda-yadda". They of course offered to produce them for you, often at thousands of dollars - a much bigger chunk back then. The pitch was that no one would take you seriously without them. And while using a inkjet printer on pull-apart cards from Office Depot was (and still is) a no-no, their pitch was over the top. They made a nice living off logo design and placing work with favored printers.
Its the same now with social media marketers - you really aren't going to stand out with a template website from GoDaddy, but you don't need to sink all that money in up front to see if things will go. No better way to cripple a new business than use all your cushion money before you even get started. Even those of us who have survived 20 years need to avoid the hype. And a lot of what passes as media expertise is just that.
