Social Media Guru???…. Social Media Who the #$%^ are you?
When I hear the term Guru I tend to think of some East Indian Individual who has mastered a divine novelty, and is capable of giving enlightenment with advice towards a numerous amount of life needs. But when I hear the term used towards Social Media I cringe as though someone has dragged their nails across a chalk board.
Guru means “light in darkness” – an enlightened, a true master. Someone who is liberated from the cycle of birth & death, and someone to help others become liberated as well.
My confusion comes from this definition above… A true Guru is someone who has study a subject for countless years, days, hours, minutes, etc…. They have studied a subject so continuously that the knowledge that has been acquired is beyond that of the average Tom, Dick or Sally…. But how can someone become a Social Media Guru when Social Media has not even been around for 15 YEARS?
Social Media is a continuously changing medium; it is a new topic, and lots of people are wrestling with it and trying to figure it out. How can one master something that changes as often as you should be changing your underwear? The answer is quite simple actually… they cannot!
Social media is being used in a number of business categories, and many are related to customer relationship management. There are over 500 million people on Facebook, so it makes sense for marketing and customer service gurus to be working hard to master social media for their categories. But let’s be honest… a Guru is not a correct term.
Let’s look at the roles Social Media plays in business:
First we have the Strategist, a person who can look at the business plan, think about the big picture and help you navigate where, what, how much, and the other Meta questions about social media and how it applies to your business model.
Then you have the other roles, such as team lead, analyst, marketer, director, developer, designer etc. This provides us with the following list of role specific needs:
• Social Media Strategist
• Social Media Analyst
• Social Media Marketer
• Social Media Director
• Social Media Coach
When you boil it all down, social media is a set of tools. It’s a platform that enables conversation, information sharing and community. Social media is authentic, and results are driven by good organic content… So once again my question is simple; how can one be a self-proclaimed Guru in the ever changing world of social media and play each role listed above?
Using Social Media to market your business is a fantastic opportunity to grow and expand.. Today we all seem to be Zombified by our smart phones and the obsession to connect with one another… It wouldn’t be intelligent for any business not to exploit the ability for an endless amount of marketing, but just be leery.. If I had a self-proclaimed Guru knocking on my door, you would see me running in the other direction!
Written by: Kat Ross (The Mark Staff Writer)
The Mark Consulting Original Content!!