Saturday, April 03, 2010

Some of my best friends are Social Media Experts.


I have noticed lately that the tone of my posts have been less creepy and more cranky (this post may be evenly split) because I have been writing a lot about Social Media Experts and how I differentiate myself from the pack.

Well this post is less about me and more about a solution to the perception of your average Social Media Expert and before I get into it I have to tell you that this idea came to me while I was in bed with a pretty girl...why is that import? Well it isn't but I am making sure that if you remember nothing else from this post it is that even in bed with women my brain is still working overtime for you.

I recently asked the question on this here blog "What Makes You Special in Social Media besides being Early" and it got some interesting responses but I am still stuck on this idea and through it I came to this realization. Social Media is full of "Internet Famous" folks who have no real experience working with a brand or to take this further wouldn't know where to begin building a brand on through the Social Media channel. This isn't new and it used to bother me for some reason but like all industries, if they want to survive they need to innovate and social media is no different (yes I have written about this as well...you really should read my previous blog posts) so I propose all these Social Media "Kool Kids" who are internet famous re-brand themselves away from Social Media Experts to Personal Brand Experts.

For one it is more accurate and probably more lucrative since (and this part came from the woman I was with so I can't take full credit) there are a lot of CEO's and SR. people in big companies who need the help on the personal side of Social Media and not necessarily on the Brand side.

The Social Media Expert train has left the station but the Social Media/Personal Branding expert is just pulling in and who knows it may just be a money train.

3 comments:

g said...

Very interesting post there Mr. Colt. A few of us had conversations along the same line at Twestival.

Out of necessity there is a big difference between people who do well with personal branding versus brand branding. I would even suggest you could break down the brand side into external and internal. I believe there are VERY different approaches and KPIs depending on where you sit.

And please stop calling me a pretty girl.

saulcolt said...

I agree that there are differences...that is why I wrote this post, silly.

It is possible to do both personal and brand marketing well but most people think they are doing one when they are actually doing the other.

This is all common sense but by figuring out what you are really good at you can make more money doing what you are doing.

...and I thought we were never going to talk about Santa Cruz again.

s!

Karim Kanji said...

Saul, can you give an example of someone doing great work on the Personal Branding side of things and someone doing a great job when it comes to helping a Brand brand itself.

And whatever happened between you and "g" in Santa Cruz should stay there. Unless there is a branding example I'm missing.

Apture

 
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