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<atom:link href="http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><title><![CDATA[Comments on: What Kind of a Social-Media 'Expert' Do You Really Need?]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments</link>
<language>en-us</language>
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<description><![CDATA[The 'expert' clients need must know what's worked, but also lead them to try new things.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[By: Todd Parsons]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107855</link>
<description><![CDATA[Joseph: Great piece. In social marketing, as in any other aspect of business, top- and bottom-line results and ROI are all that count; the rest is just sound and fury signifying nothing, and will be revealed as such in short order. Natural selection always does a great job.]]></description>
<pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:51 EST</pubDate>
<author>Todd Parsons</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: Shaun Fortney]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107844</link>
<description><![CDATA[Hi Joe, thanks for this article. You made really good points.

As a general reaction to the article, I want to point out that an &quot;expert&quot; is a very strong title to place on anyone in any vertical. Sited in a very popular book (as well as among other works), Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, in order to become an expert in anything you need to have devoted 10,000 hours to the field and explored all facets of this specific task before you can truly be an &quot;expert.&quot;

That being said, I think this, among the points you made about needing to test various online media tactics in fast and cost-effective ways, causes these &quot;social media experts&quot; to not only rethink their self-titling of &quot;expert&quot; (knowing that EFFECTIVE social media advertising is still in it&#039;s infancy) but also remember that the truly successful marketing tactics of today were first tested, and if proven, then deployed on a large scale.

In summary, you couldn&#039;t have said it better with your last mention, &quot;Both clients and agencies will benefit when they stop placing value on the modern definition of &quot;expert&quot; and create conditions where testing, experimenting, optimizing and speed are as valuable as any tool in our kit.&quot; Thanks, Joe! 

Shaun Fortney, Agency &amp; Marketer Development, QUANTCAST]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:50 EST</pubDate>
<author>Shaun Fortney</author>
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<title><![CDATA[By: JOSEPH PERELLO]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107842</link>
<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:15 EST</pubDate>
<author>JOSEPH PERELLO</author>
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<title><![CDATA[By: Steven Bier]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107841</link>
<description><![CDATA[Mr. Perello-
I have had the pleasure of using your company Catch New York. I must say you practice what you preach and your good results prove it. I think &quot;Uppity&quot; is missing the point of your article. This is not a &quot;jab&quot; at experts, but a reminder that in the 21st century data collection &amp; testing followed by innovation &amp; the willingness to change will often turn a young &quot;whippersnapper&quot; into an expert and make an &quot;expert&quot; look archaic.
Mr. Perello, I know you have worked with both George Steinbrenner and Mayor Bloomberg so you have seen first hand both the successes and short comings of Old World &amp; New Age marketing approaches. Your approach is the correct one: test, experiment, and optimize.]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:11 EST</pubDate>
<author>Steven Bier</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: JOSEPH PERELLO]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107840</link>
<description><![CDATA[Stan - Exactly. In fact, I&#039;ve been thinking about the topic of pioneers as my next article. The best ones avoid the arrows - or at least have enough armor to take the blow and keep going. I&#039;ve had a few in me!]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:49 EST</pubDate>
<author>JOSEPH PERELLO</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: Stan Phelps]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107837</link>
<description><![CDATA[Joe - great job calling out the issue of mavens, gurus and ninjas on social media. Instead of experts, those who are actually doing the work should be calling themselves pioneers. Social media is in its infancy. Staying out on the leading edge and pioneering is tough work. To steal the punchline of an old joke, &quot;You never want to be a pioneer, because they tend to get all of the arrows.&quot;
You&#039;ve captured the challenge for brands. It&#039;s about finding the balance between experience and innovation in a partner. Be suspect of anyone that holds themselves out as an expert. True mastery is never achievable. 
Best,
Stan
@9INCHmarketing
&quot;The longest and hardest 9 inches in marketing is the distance between the brain and the heart of your customer&quot;]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:07 EST</pubDate>
<author>Stan Phelps</author>
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<title><![CDATA[By: Kathleen Davis]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107832</link>
<description><![CDATA[Well articulated Joe. It is tough to find expertise with a field in constant flux and unable to agree on social media valuation.
Thank you for sharing.
Kathleen Davis, CEO SMRI &amp; GIG Consulting]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:53 EST</pubDate>
<author>Kathleen Davis</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: Olivia Siu]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107830</link>
<description><![CDATA[It is not uncommon to see self-proclaimed &quot;ninjas&quot; bluff their way to winning clients. Whenever I meet with a social media partner candidate, it is important to take everything they say with a grain of salt. Recently, social media startups are all over the place (in Montreal at the very least), and most of them cater to smaller local clients, such as restaurants, night clubs, etc. I would like to see how this model work in an A2A (Agency to Agency) partnership approach. 

http://theideamug.blogspot.com/]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:47 EST</pubDate>
<author>Olivia Siu</author>
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<title><![CDATA[By: M. Turner]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107828</link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;...if they weren&#039;t being hired, then they couldn&#039;t be making these claims.&quot; 

Anyone can change their bio on a social profile. If you just do a random sampling of some of these folks to compare their LinkedIn profiles (i.e.: their alleged resume) with their Twitter bio, you&#039;ll find that far more than a handful have no real-world experience.]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:27 EST</pubDate>
<author>M. Turner</author>
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<title><![CDATA[By: Sherry Foster]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107823</link>
<description><![CDATA[Agree Joe. Social media is WAY too new to have thousands of Experts already. However, what also is amazing to me is how slow some of the current generation of marketing &quot;experts&quot; are picking up on SoMe. And when I say current generation, I don&#039;t mean 60-year-olds. I mean people who entered the field in the last 10 years sometimes. I worry about how relevant people will be able to stay... I think the pace of change is picking up and people are getting left behind really, really fast.]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:08 EST</pubDate>
<author>Sherry Foster</author>
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<title><![CDATA[By: Mark Levitt]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107822</link>
<description><![CDATA[Joe,

Great article! I would much prefer to work with people who question everything than with experts who claim to know everything.]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:07 EST</pubDate>
<author>Mark Levitt</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: JOSEPH PERELLO]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107810</link>
<description><![CDATA[Agree Elliot. Experienced? Yes! Specialized? Yes. Expert? No. Too much more to learn.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:34 EST</pubDate>
<author>JOSEPH PERELLO</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: JOSEPH PERELLO]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107809</link>
<description><![CDATA[Uppity - Great screen name, BTW. I would look at it more as an unveiled jab at the whole idea of Expert Status. Since Social Media is relatively new, and there is some mystery among &#039;the establishment&#039; about how it can be effective, its easy to call yourself an Expert and get business. So right now Social Media is getting the rap. But the same thing happened when the Internet took hold at the turn of the century. So called &quot;experts&quot; said they knew digital and got business. And anyone could have made the same argument then. This will happen when any new industry is born, for there is margin in mystery. But please don&#039;t confuse my criticism of Expert Status with a Luddite approach towards social. As I wrote, &quot;As an industry, we should embrace experimentation, like the inventors, tinkerers and disruptors who question the rules as a way to start solving the problem, not as a last resort. The results are exponentially better.&quot; Thanks so much for taking an interest! Regards, Joe Perello]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:32 EST</pubDate>
<author>JOSEPH PERELLO</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: Mark Anderson]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107804</link>
<description><![CDATA[What&rsquo;s in a name? 

I agree that if you call yourself a &ldquo;guru&rdquo; but don&rsquo;t have a job doing whatever it is you&rsquo;re a guru of then you&rsquo;re probably too audacious with your title. 

But remember &ldquo;webmasters&rdquo; back in the 90s? No way you were going to convince three layers of executives to fund that kind of job at an agency. Too new. Too amorphous. Too risky with margins narrowing every quarter. And practically none of them had full-time experience. So instead, they hired them under the name &ldquo;consultant&rdquo; from more comforting sources like IBM. 

If you&rsquo;re committed to bringing social media talent in-house where they can grow up in an agency, as an agency person, you&rsquo;re going to have to accept a lack of experience and probably deal with a millenial ego. The alternative is to wait until the role is conventionalized and commoditized. By then, you&rsquo;ll probably have dropped the ball with a client or two who want to know what you&rsquo;re doing to change the social media game. 

(And please keep the &ldquo;whores&rdquo; on the street.)]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:14 EST</pubDate>
<author>Mark Anderson</author>
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<title><![CDATA[By: Elliot DeBear]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107801</link>
<description><![CDATA[Perhaps it would be more beneficial to replace the term &quot;expert&quot; with &quot;professional&quot; or &quot;specialist&quot;. Such descriptions seem more valid and elicit an expectation: that the individual is experienced and dedicated to upgrading his/her understandings of the marketplace, new technologies, applications, strategies and outcomes.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:00 EST</pubDate>
<author>Elliot DeBear</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: Uppity Whippersnapper]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107798</link>
<description><![CDATA[All due respect, this seems to amount to another veiled jab at the whole field of social media marketing, and as a critique of &quot;expertise,&quot; reads like another piece by an &quot;established&quot; marketer trying to preempt those meddling, upstart kids from entering your space. Success in any field is dependent on the ability to take proven practices and insights and apply them to novel situations -- for example, medical experts working to treat new diseases reference what works in existing treatment and go from there, despite the rapid adaptation of germs. In a space where technology evolves fast, knowledge accumulation can happen fast too. But hey, your prerogative, don&#039;t hire kids/digital natives; just keep an eye on where the most successful, disruptive strategies actually come from.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:13 EST</pubDate>
<author>Uppity Whippersnapper</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: JOSEPH PERELLO]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107788</link>
<description><![CDATA[BL - First, thank you for writing the &#039;Guru&#039; piece, and for tracking this phenomenon. And thanks for your comment. I believe we are in agreement that &#039;Expert Status&#039; is a false measure for competence, especially in Social Media. I took the opportunity you provided to add to your point - that its odd that these terms are growing, it is a reflection of clients aversion to risk - hence &quot;we hired and expert.&quot; Glad we agree that learning and experimenting are key to our success. Hope to read more of your insights soon. Regards, Joe Perello]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:32 EST</pubDate>
<author>JOSEPH PERELLO</author>
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<item>
<title><![CDATA[By: BL OCHMAN]]></title>
<link>http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/kind-a-social-media-expert-hire/239439/#comments-107784</link>
<description><![CDATA[Joseph - With all respect, I believe you misunderstood my point. In my post about the explosion of self-appointed social media gurus, ninjas and so on, the point I was making is that the najority of these self-appointed experts DON&#039;T all have jobs, or clients, or any kind of track record. Most of them are observers, not active players. 

And I wrote: &quot;The fact is: there are only a handful of social media experts on the planet whom others are likely to call gurus.&quot; That&#039;s a title based on bottom line results from dynamic ideas, provided consistently, over time.

I agree that the best people in any field are the ones who are always learning, always experimenting, always trying new ideas.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:21 EST</pubDate>
<author>BL OCHMAN</author>
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