Social Media Experts

                                     Who are they?

               Do they really exist?

There have been many now that proclaim to be  the so called "Social Media Expert" status.  These people attempt to define their status with amount of followers, training they have conducted, who they know etc.  If it is an Agency, they claim to have worked with name brand clients with "look how many followers" we got them, ran a social media contest that was "Lead Generation" activity, developed Facebook landing page etc.

As Social Media acceptance grows and all businesses realize they need a social media strategy, more so called Social Media Experts, Social Media Gurus and Marketing Agencies that provide social media solutions will be posing as Experts and soliciting their social media solutions.  Be Ware!

 I always pose the example of the Domino's Pizza Facebook account: if given this account to establish it would not be difficult to get over 100,00 followers or even 500k.  For the record, the Domino's Pizza Facebook account has over 1 million followers.

Malcom Gladwell's book Outliers, he introduced research from Dr. K. Anders Ericsson that suggested being great at something takes 10,000 hours of practice.  The study is subjective because depending on the activity pursuit, learning curves and mastery level may take less hours and some individuals master activities faster than others.  So, who has over 10,000 hours practicing social media?  5000?  2500?

Here are 10 questions to ask your social media expert or agency.

Facebook gives MySpace a bandaid

In another  hyped up press conference yesterday (11/18/10), Facebook announced they will be partnering with MySpace allowing users to log into the site with their Facebook login and share content more easily between the two properties.  The partnership called, Mashup with Facebook, further reveals MySpace's strategy to reposition itself as more of a music and entertainment hub than a Social Platform which is Facebook's strategic direction.

The new feature leverages Facebook Connect and builds on an initiative that MySpace unveiled in August called Sync with Facebook that let its users sync status updates with their Facebook profile and share content more easily with Facebook friends. The latest alliance is intended to match users' Facebook profile data and interests with music, movie, TV and celebrity-related content on MySpace. MySpace will let users port their Facebook "Interests and Likes" information into MySpace to create customized content streams on the site. *MediaPost 11/2010 article.

MySpace CEO Mike Jones said the new integration with Facebook rolling out globally today illustrated the company's strategy to be the Web's "leading social entertainment destination."   Facebook  easily surpassed MySpace over two years with current estimates on users at over 500 million with MySpace bleeding users with a highly speculative report of 130 million users.

Is this a case of a brilliant PR move by Facebook allowing for MySpace to have dignity in their eventual death and/or knowing that the MySpace platform will eventually be reduced to what it started out to be, a social platform for bands/artist to market themselves which will be a viable platform for advertising.  Once MySpace becomes stabilized within their strategy of being the Web's "leading social entertainment destination"I believe Facebook will purchase MySpace because why invent the social platform wheel. 

MySpace, owed by News Corp., COO Chase Carey said earlier this month in a conference call with analysts that MySpace's "current losses are not acceptable or sustainable," raising speculation that the media giant could shutter the site. News Corp. acquired MySpace in 2005 for $580 million.  This statement could have very well been strategic positioning to raise awareness for the MySpace possible investors looking to purchase this out-of-control drunk collage kid of social platform that thought it could take over the World.  I believe MySpace, or at least News Corp., has sobered up enough to realize that it is time to make immediate changes in their life and this is one of them.

As a Brand and Marketing Strategist, I rarely hear myself suggest to client to create a MySpace account.  Again, we will have to see how this new Mashup partnership works out and if MySpace is just going to be a joke we tell of Social Platforms past.

QUESTION: Who is your first Point of Contact

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