Can anyone really call themselves a social media expert or guru? I hear these titles tossed around a lot these days. I’m not sure if anyone can really qualify for this distinction based on the newness of the medium. In the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell he talks about the theory of 10,000 hours. This states that to really be proficient or an expert in any area you need to put in approximately 10,000 hours.
If you use this as a starting point then not too many people really can call themselves experts. Facebook started in February of 2004 and was only used by college students. It didn’t open to the public till September of 2006. Since opening to the public, it has gone through a host of changes and business has been adapting so it can take advantage of this growing audience.
When you talk about social media Facebook is only one of the players. You also have to account for Twitter, blogs, social bookmarking and all the other ways people are now interacting online.
This medium is going through constant changes with new sites springing up and users looking to see how they can be used on a personal and business level. Trying to spend enough time on any one site or on using all the sites would make it next to impossible for anyone to truly be called an expert.
Social media is constantly evolving and those of use that it on a regular basis and try to advise our clients on the advantages at this point are still students. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t people that can advise you properly and help with strategy. It does mean that if anyone tells you they know all the answers then they might not be open to the changes and could miss new opportunities as the social world changes.
Do you feel you qualify as a social media expert? Feel free to share your thoughts.
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