What is a Social Media Expert?

by Matt Sullivan on May 19, 2011

Just as I made the decision to write this post, Peter Shankman Tweeted:

Time to go on stage at a social media conference and explain that the term “social media consultant” needs to die in a fire.

Dr. Nick - Social Media Expert

I may not have put it so violtently, but it’s a never ending source of frustration for me to see how many people are self proclaimed experts, gurus, ninjas, or consultants in the social media space. In my mind, there are three main reasons as to why this industry exploded.

The first is the economy. With many knowledge workers being laid-off or under utilized, that gives them the ability to take their abilities to the market place. Labeling yourself an expert is better than saying “I know social media”.

The second factor in the glut of social media experts is that there is no barrier to entry to the tools. This isn’t like saying you’re a expert carpenter where the required tools costs hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. All anyone needs is a computer and an internet connection, and the latter is freely available with a $4 latte at Starbucks. I’ve banged my fist on the desk before that you’re not a social media marketing expert just because you use social media everyday. The analogy I use is that I’m not a NASCAR driver because I drive to work everyday. The true experts will be able to prove their expertise through case studies, analytics, and ROI (*gasp!*).

Finally, the technology is accelerating so fast that no central set of standards can keep up. As soon as a book hits the shelves, several chapters are probably out-of-date. Just when you become a familiar with Facebook’s security settings, everything changes. If you go on vacation, it’s completely possible that you miss some big roll-out, and suddenly you’re no longer the expert.

Thankfully, there’s a a great team working on a solution.

The Boston-based start-up Smarterer recently showed up on my radar and, in a word, I’ve become obsessed. The concept is so simple, I’m surprised that no one has already tried something: there are so many skills, like social media, that people self-assess their abilities. This turns into everyone being “proficient at Excel” or a “social media expert”. What Smarterer has done is built a testing platform that allows the community to build the skills assessment tests. Nothing is outdated, and poor questions are maturely weeded-out of the system. As co-founder Dave Balter puts it, “We’re out to fix the ‘skills’ box on everyone’s resume”.

I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to try the system, and there is no doubt that this platform will succeed. The scores & badges give you the instant gratification that works so well in Foursquare, there’s direct competition against other users for rankings, and the system has built in triggers to pull people back into the system. One feature that I especially like is that it will be difficult for anyone to reach the highest scores if they don’t contribute to the community. While one may be able to get a high score, it will require question submission to make the leap. Another great aspect of the system is that the tests feel like a video game; once you finish a round of questions, you immediately want to hit the button that says “Improve My Score”.

So, since I’ve had access, I’ve taken 13 test. As I expected, I have strong skills in web development tools and social media. What I found interesting was that even though I work with Photoshop on a regular basis, it’s only with the most basic of tools (e.g. resize, crop, layers, drop shadows, etc.) The test is geared towards people that know what they’re doing, and my test accurately reflects my ability.

Since I started this post with a rant about self-labeled social media experts, I won’t be a hypocrite. Instead, I’ll just post a screenshot of my scores. I’ll let you decide what my title should be.