Open Thread: Should Social Media Experts Be Required to Know Their Tech?
Social media gurus: We all know one. If you're lucky, you know only one.
They are the attendees of tech parties, the "Twitter consultants," the armchair generals of the Internet, and their numbers grow by the day. Yet most of them couldn't distinguish a line of code from a badly punctuated haiku.
What's to be done with the social media experts? Accept that their blathering may contain some wisdom? Or require technical exams for all Twitter users with more than 1,000 followers? You decide! And make the NMDs among us take our "technical" quiz.
There is always grave danger when amateurs turn overnight into experts. This sub-professional clown town is where B movies and Soulja Boy come from. It's also the birthplace of every blowhard who tells you you're "doing it wrong" without any technical knowledge or original thought to back it up.
Sometimes, it's not such a bad thing - in fact, there are a great many non-technical social media folks who are doing a great job of creating quality content and helping brands get themselved situated on the Web. But most of the people I can think of who fit this description have been doing their thing for so long that they've had to pick up a few technical tidbits along the way to ensure their continued success and to ensure they weren't sounding like idiots.
However, I hold the strong opinion that if you're working in technology - even as a PR flak or social media consultant - you should be able to understand some of the terms, concepts and people that make your business possible. Otherwise, you risk your own reputation by taking the chance that you're scarily wrong or laughably vague, and you risk gumming up the works for your clients by not knowing how to communicate with their audience, many of whom are very technical folk.
Ultimately, taking the time and effort to understand the technology you use is simply a matter of taking pride in your work, just like the barista who knows all the ins and outs of the perfectly pulled free-trade organic espresso or the skilled sommelier who, though he may not make the wine himself, knows everything about who did and where and how.
Take this quick survey, my social media gurus. (Techies, don't take the survey; you'll skew the results.) If you can't work out the answers, you might be sounding like an idiot - I tell you this because I'm your friend and I care about you. And remember, when you cheat, you're only cheating yourself, so no Wikipedia for you.
Let me know in the comments what you think about the issue. Am I being an elitist prig? Did I not take my rant far enough? How much do you think a social media expert should know about tech? Would you work with someone who couldn't sail through this "technical" survey?
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Interesting idea - look forward to the results. Agree that people who consult on social media need to have at least an appreciation of the technical elements. Also agree with all questions except "What was the first-ever computer bug?" - I did my uni programming in the late 80s and even then we didn't cover that one...
Marketers who don't know whether or not "it's relatively simple to translate PHP into C++" might be sounding like idiots?
Do you need to know the composition of asphalt to drive a car?
Right, so I took the survey, but th person who coded it forgot that the thing I wanted the most from the survey is to find out if I actually AM an NMD :-) and sadly, there was no user feedback of the result.
In honesty, I tend to agree, but the problem is more than just us folks living off our knowledge of digital media platforms, maybe we should also look at the other side of the table with mobile wannabes, HTML "gurus" and all the folks that seriously believe,that just because they have spent a couple of hours doing code,suddenly they know everything about creeating a viable business or about usability.
You have no idea of how many young, bright, energetic dudes I have met that think that everything invented on the web before 2008 was, like, Gopherspace and that their new half-baked 5 minute idea should be easy and cheap and make them millions in a couple of weeks if all these old techie hippies would get out of the way. And when they actually then peddle these concepts to their CEO uncles etc., they create real problems or even bad business decisions for all the serious consultants that actually know how to build a business on globs and metasyntactical variables - and their customers.
But yes, everybody wants to be in the game and everybody is a social media expert these days. Actually,I am not tat worried. The consultancy marketplace is a very Darwinian space, and a lot of these guys get looked through fast.I guess there's always another sucker around the corner somewhere to pay them off, but hey - that's business.
Although I agree with the premise of the post, every profession has its bottom feeders (see Holmes on Homes) and tests or licenses don't do anything to keep them from conning people... Because no matter how "dumb" a social media expert really is, there will always be a "dumber" client out there, who doesn't want to think about it and just wants everything to be taken care of, to be duped.
With regards to the survey, why wouldn't it primarily be focused on the tech that powers social media? Do questions about Company X's profitability and funding rounds matter at all to a digital PR/Marketer?
Why not strictly focus on the tech that powers social media? What does API stand for is a good basic question, but APIs are a huge part of social media. What can/can't an API do, and other deeper questions around APIs, can weed out the weenies... RSS is huge for social media as well and would be another area that could highlight people who don't know what they're talking about, by getting into the how it works and what can/can't be done with the questions.
@Erica: I plan to explain why each of these kinds of knowledge is actually quite important for even the fluffiest of social media bunnies.
To continue your analogy, if you're going to drive a car, you have to know more than where the gas pedal is - you have to be able to communicate with a mechanic, make simple repairs yourself, know how to drive in different conditions... And there are all kinds of drivers out there. The best drivers know everything they can about what makes cars "go."
I always figured the sign of a bad social media consultant was that they gave bad advice about social media.
based on jolie's interviews, i'd be surprised if she could answer three of the questions correctly.
Erica Glasier:
No, you don't need to know the composition of asphalt to drive a car. You also don't need to know how a car works internally to drive it. Where you're wrong, though, is that a social media consultant isn't a simple commuter on the old Information Superhighway. A simple commuter in their Prius is a common Facebook or Twitter user, with a power user perhaps being someone who has a car with a stick shift and enjoys driving through the mountains on weekends.
The vast space of social media consulting is a different realm: you now have people attempting to make money off of others of which many honestly don't know the details of social media. It's like being a professional race car driver that doesn't know a connecting rod from a driveshaft. As a car enthusiast (a power user,) I've never once even heard of a pro driver that does not have the capability to perform basic mechanical work, even though their job has nothing to do with actually being able to build cars.
If a social media consultant is not simply a power user trying to bluff his or her way into their next contract, knowing what runs the technology that a social media consultant tries to sell people on is an imperative. A social media consultant that doesn't know about the underlying technology is just not passionate about what they're actually consulting about, which makes for an extremely useless professional.
To amend to previous comments, the lack of immediate quiz results demonstrates an error of social media protocol, if you will, and supports the need for social media experts. That being said, I enjoyed the quiz (thanks!), and think the fellow flaks and journos out there should collaborate to create a media quiz for the technologist. Fair is fair.
Let me know if you'd like help with that. I have reasonable rates for an NMD.
@bobo A few years ago you might have been right! My knowledge gaps acutely embarrassed me, though, so I've made every effort to correct them. =)
Tonight, I continue on that path by reading a few more pages of my O'Reilly Python book before bedtime.
@gorditamedia - That *IS* an interesting proposition: How much to technologists know about business/marketing. Perhaps another open thread for another day!
I've worked in newspapers for more than 20 years and I still know nothing about printing.
I did not take the survey, being technical, but I read it and there are a few issues:
- Q6: Three answers are actually acceptable, so it should have said "A hacker is NOT a..."
- Q8: What does it mean to be a "supported" browser? Supported by who? Or did you mean "major" browser (as in... one of the six browsers that appear in the first set of choices of the EU-imposed browser selection dialog in Windows 7)?
- Q9: There is no valid answer.
Cheers!
I believe a consultant has done no crime if he does not have a tech background, but picking up stuff on the way to getting their insights is a must.
I would hate to take advice from a so-called expert who doesn't care about the basic workings of social media engines.....
My concern is that the survey is not, strictly speaking, technical at all. There's not a line of code in the survey, and it seems to be more a general knowledge review of the tech sector. Further, some questions are posed in a manner which is clearly trying to 'trick' respondents into delivering an inaccurate answer - which doesn't actually test technical knoweldge, but rather, concentration. The survey is also biased to a tech socio-political perspective. And a control question on funding is actually functionally irrelevant to a consultant's role - indicating that the survey creator doesn't understand the job of a consultant.
Not particularly useful. Next time, do a real tech test and offer some data and a line of problematic code and see who can spot the fault. That'd be a more useful test for what you actually want to distinguish.
Ι took the survey and I can't wait for the results!
I totally agree that the "new media douchebags" should have a strong technical background. Best solution - intern or "punishment" for a week in a web hosting company call center will do the job - they would learn basic html, php, sql, etc. which will help them better understand the platfroms they work on, their limitations or the stuff they might do or ask for new features to be rolled in. Plus we will be witnessing much less scam, phishing and spam that way :)
Interesting... looking forward to the results. Whether or not a social media advisor/expert needs to have a decent technical understanding of the web depends on what work they are carrying out. It may be that they need to have a greater understanding of the cultural and organisational changes that their clients need to adapt to the new mediascape.
While there are a ton of marketing people piling into this space with little or no understanding of the technology, it's also true to say that there are loads of techies piling in with little or no understanding of culture, marketing, communications and content creation.
So we can flip this question around.... do social media experts need to have at least some understanding of how their clients' culture, communications, internal organisation and workflows might need to change as a result of new technology?
Like in every 'hybrid' area between Tech + sth else(business, PR, etc) questions like 'how much you should know from the other area' tipically emerge. Business guys used to blame the tech-geeks they don't have enough marketing/business/management sense. The tech-geeks used to feel misunderstood about product quality questions, about priorities, about workarounds.. And if everybody is looking only from his side, is too easy to blame the other one is idiot:)
About the issues in social media and who is better, who is weak or who is an 'idiot' - I think we should obey the common principle - A people hire A people, B people hire C people. This is valid in every area and that's why we have such a diversity of successful or not so successful products on the market.
Could you please make an interview with randomly selected 10-20-x social media top experts( from leading companies form Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc), asking them what kind of questions they'd ask a person on interview, concerning the 'hybrid literacy' of tech&buzz ? I think all the community would appreciate such a experiment! :)
Thumbs up,
Svetlina
Fascinating post guys,
as a hopeful, job seeking, new media navigator at heart, i cant help but worry what the results of this test will say about those of us who look to help others better understand the social media landscape, but i definitely agree that if you are that much of a proponent of getting people to use the internet, they should know a lot more about it than it being "a bunch of tubes".
In the same light, Social media, in my experience, has been a matter of USING the web, understanding its intricacies, the unique communities that are built around sites (and vice versa), and the impact it makes on getting people to interact with each other in lots of different ways. I'm not so excited about the days when you can take a few classes to learn about what "social media is" and be deemed a certified "social media expert" by some educational standard.. The web moves too fast for that, and it doesn't speak to the knowledge you gain from actually using it.
Looking forward to the results, and the discussion stemming from this post!
역시나 테스트
I'm a bit peeved that I have to wait for the results.
To answer your question, I believe that you have to know at least some of the technologies. Look, you have to be able to integrated tweets et. al into websites to maximize engagement and to build a strong community. You do that by knowing (at least in general terms) what can easily be done (and what cannot).
Of course, as Dennis Miller says, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Awesome.
This is a topic that i´ve been arguing about a lot. Anyone who doesn´t know about tech questions around their product (name it twitter, FB, Youtube or the same WWW) is not a passionate about it, only an oportunist.
Thanks, Jolie. I´ve approved the test. Sure that because i´m a "woman" social media expert. We usually speak having studied a lot before :)
Agree with the ranting, however, as some commentators point out - indeed, some questions need a bit of tweaking :)
It's as with any other profession - the more you know, the better. Most of us know what it takes to be a decent professional in any sphere: hard work and tons of experience. Right now people are trying to grasp every possibility while it lasts and sell themselves. Nobody really can define a list of things SM consultant (or whatever the term is) to know. We don't have a stable name for the submerging profession nowadays!
I'd give it a rest for a while - in a year or two we will know, who is passionate enough to stay on track of social media work and learn enough to freely discuss pros and cons of OpenID/oAuth and blame browsers for implementing CSS poorly :)
Please post the results along with links to get more of the information vital for these social media gurus to know. Whatever you do, please don't leave them hanging or this post would have been in vain. =)
Very interesting and alive debate going on here. Here is my small contribution:
I agree that at least a minimum knowledge on IT is expected from someone counseling or implementing Social Media (hate the "guru" term). You need to know what technologies best suit to your project or be able to dialogue with IT department if wanting to be taken seriously or not asking for impossible tech solutions. But that said, I disagree that a deep tech knowledge is required nor necessary.
Information architecture, usability, content strategy, social media planning are not tech concepts, are communication and accessibility concepts. As such, they need first of all a Comunication expert, an expert that knows the potential, the use, the needs and the strategies both from users's and from organisation's perspectives. Once this is clear, IT people join the game to make it feasible. Or they may form a team from the very beginning.
No need to know how an engine works to drive skillfully.
No HTML nor php nor zillions of apps programming is needed to lead a Social Media project succesfully.
I'm aware that this statement may not be very popular, but too often IT people leading web projects (with a few exceptions) fail to put technology at the service of content and do the other way around.
As for the quizz, to make it more interactive I'd suggest you provide the right results after completing it(that's a communication, not a tecch savvy point of view!;)
Conxa
@innova2
At some point in all this we're going to need people who understand the implications of technologies and how they fit together, rather than how they are built. I think it's important that someone in the room has deep knowledge of the various products and tools available to manage a brand and get the message out. How to combine a blog with Twitter and Facebook and make the most out of it. What a Facebook Page is and how to leverage it.
This isn't programming skill but it's extremely valuable in it's own right.
I don't need help from half-baked hacker wannabes on how to hook up something to Twitter correctly. I got that. I need help understanding WHY!
Interesting debate, certainly.
However, I don't claim to be technically minded, i can write HTML, CSS, set up webservers and administrate computers. Precisely because I know my limitations I know when to ask " what's that then?" Or," dude, Layman present"
I also, work in SM, as well as some Biz Dev, and Search Quality, in short I do everything I possibly can to assist those who are doing what I cannot do - programming quickly and well.
Personally my belief is there need to be a middle ground on both groups, both of whom display differing qualities, and all of whom are essential to the success of the company.
Yes, it is annoying to meet a chancer talking out of his rusty starfish about client-side database VPNs but this happens in EVERY field, and journalism is no different. Anyone who cares about the amount of times they have to have knowledge translated or filled in, will learn what they need to know. The others will wander off to the next clump of grass.
In short, no one thing is MORE useful than the other, in the way that being a wide programmer is no more useful than being deep.
Horse for courses, surely we're all trying to make a buck, enjoy our jobs and to keep on learning?
Name and shame the lame, but stop tarnishing the honest.
@Eston & @Jolie: the asphalt composition is a reference to the incredibly granular knowledge of programming the quiz suggests marketers need to avoid "idiocy".
Programming language minutiae doesn't help anyone with creative, strategic engagement. How about if social media marketers are well versed in communications, marketing, strategic thinking, community building, creative problem solving, media theory, sociology, and the arts? THAT is what will give them the ability to know what they're talking about, not the details of the underlying structure of the tools they'll use (or have others use) to achieve their business goals?
that was a good read! yes social gurus are all over the place. when trying to cut out the clutter, i came across this and well, a read is always better than hearing out suggestions. check this out http://bit.ly/aQxde8
Just because social media uses computers, the Internet and technology to run does not mean that a social media consultant needs to know any of the answers on your test. I took your test, and presume I did fairly well, but I would say none of it really applies.
Unless you are building a social media app -- yourself -- why would you care about programming languages? Who cares how you define a hacker? Or what the first "bug" was? Those are completely random questions.
That I know the answers does NOT make me more qualified as a social media consultant. Social media consultants do need technical knowledge, but not the type in your quiz.
RSS? Yes.
Google Analytics? Yes.
C++ and PHP coding....not so much.
Way more important than technical knowledge is marketing savvy and experience! What bothers me is not the lack of technology know-how, but the lack of marketing basics that I see out there.
There's one social media agency that is currently spamming the heck out of all the LinkedIn groups. How is that permission based marketing?! It's not. It's spam. And it sullies the reputation of every reputable (social media) marketing consultant. I got into social media marketing because my clients were clamoring to understand it -- not because I "saw gold in them there hills", but because as a marketing consultant, I feel an obligation to understand all the tools at my disposal.
To me, what's really important in a social media consultant is a deep understanding of marketing. What do people respond to? Why? What should proper expectations be? How do you turn a suspect into a prospect and into a paying client? What are the steps? What are the tools you should use? How do you measure, test and refine what you are doing for greater results?
Your post was thought-provoking and created an interesting discussion, but I disagree completely that the type of technical knowledge on your quiz is at all necessary for social media success.
Adrianne Machina
So, let's see....I'm the communications point person for a cluster of non-profit health clinics. Should I resign because I am unable to diagnose even a simple ailment? After all, I don't know a virus from a bacteria, and I have no idea how to spell hemorrhage without the assistance of a spell checker.
It's so helpful when people point out to me that specialized scientific knowledge is the basis for making someone a good communicator. I guess the last 22 years of my career were just a big waste of time!
I feel even worse for all of our patients, who are low-income and many of whom lack an education. We should tell them all that they can't take care of themselves or their children because they don't have the technical knowledge they need, and couldn't possibly understand the medical literature found in textbooks.
Now, let's solve world hunger....
How do you define an expert in any field? It has to be based on past results and some form of credible evidence. If they can't prove to you that they are able to transform your social media profile, forget about them and move on.
There are sharks out there to make a quick buck in any profession, but more particularly online. They prey on ignorance and rarely deliver. Social media isn't all that complicated, therefore sounding like an expert won't cause too many concerns.
But in technical areas you can't wing it. You need to know what you're talking about, otherwise your ignorance will soon be highlighted. The is particularly true in social media where you will be communicating directly with people who are knowledgable or interested in your field. Anybody can build an army of Twitter followers, but very few have the power to convert them into meaningful traffic for a site.
taken the test and... shock horror... social media fail!
A real social media guru would have given the user instant feedback by telling them their test score so they could blog / brag about it (because that's what we do all day long).
Given users the option to challenge their friends, or tweet their score to create a viral effect?
Maybe created some inbound links back to RWW by giving people an embeddable score badge to put on their blog sidebar?
come on RWW, pull your social media socks up!
Thank you Adrianne. You said exactly what I was going to say. Let me start by saying that I don't consider myself a "social media guru" and I am not making money as a consultant. I am in higher education and I enjoy using social media to engage students, faculty, alumni, prospective students, and staff. I do consult with other offices on campus to let them know what has been successful and give them direction on how to use social media.
I fail to see why I need to have knowledge of programming language to use these tools. I know HTML and I build Web sites regularly, but when I have a serious technical issue, I turn to our programmers. Does that mean I'm a phony or a "PR flak?"
I'm an intellectually curious person and I have begun to delve into more of the technical stuff, but I see that as going beyond my job description, not as a deficiency.
I love Twitter. More than any other social media tool, it has allowed me to reach out to all of our audiences and to share best practices with other web professionals and "social media gurus" in my industry.
However, I am disheartened by the level of snobbery I see at times within these social media and web circles. I think this article is a perfect example of that snobbery.
Why don't we reverse the argument and see how many programmers are great communicators? That can't be ascertained in a 10-question survey, so we probably won't find out.
... the survey window is black, shows only the radio buttons but no text. So far to this sites technical standards.
Regarding the lack of tech knowledge, there is on the other hand also a problem of too many techies branding themselves as marketing consultants. The survey is nice, but where are the marketing questions?
True social media consultants have a foot in both worlds.
You forgot to add one of my favorite questions: What is IRC?
The so-called social media "experts" that have no idea what IRC is, don't know if it qualifies as social media, or have no clue if people still use it (and what for)...they crack me up.
These are the same "experts" that think real-time chat began on Friendfeed or Buzz.
Well, we need not more exams, we need more maket-driven solutions. If someone gets a thousand followers, there must be a reason and Forest Gump might have deserved a million but would he have passsed an exam?!
@CrisisMaven:
Having over 1000 followers doesn't necessarily mean you are an expert in anything, nevermind social media.
Here is a potted plant with over 3000 followers: http://twitter.com/pothos
Would you like to hire that plant as your social media consultant?
I totally agree with the premise of the post, but have to also agree with those who commented the questions could be improved. Still it'll be interesting to see the results.
There are many paths for becoming a "good" social media consultant, but one thing is certain. You can't be successful at it unless you're both a good teacher and a lifelong learner.
In the aggregate, the commenters remind us of traits to watch out for when hiring SM consultants. Namely, it's a warning sign when a) someone's hair stands on end at the suggestion they ought to know something to be effective at their work and b) it's an even bigger warning when they INSIST that they don't need to know something!
Faced with a long list of things we need to know, I guess it's human nature to push back and claim it's "irrelevant." But those who do might be taking themselves out of the group of people who would make good consultants. Like a scientist or researcher, consultants never know what knowledge they'll need to apply in their work. That's why it's smart to hire learners. They know stuff.
Stuck in Apollo 13 with no way back to earth, who do you want there with you? The tinkerer who knows a little bit of everything, or the narrow specialist automaton who only goes by the book? I'd choose the rubber band and duct tape type every time.
And by the way the composition of bituminous concrete is hardly a mystery or the least bit technical.
Coming from an entirely different field (academia), I can't say with any accuracy what may or may not be required from a particular consultant at any one time. But in my own field, it is easy to see when an academic has badly reimagined or even plagiarized from a previous source; the greater error is when that academic doesn't even know the source they are unwittingly using, and when others wrongfully praise the plagiarizer's "ingenuity."
Historical knowledge in any field is essential, because it provides foundational concepts upon which our present understanding is based; to abandon the accumulated knowledge and experience of the past 30 years of programming and development is to potentially make the same errors that may have been made before. In an era where social media more accurately resembles a hodgepodge of previous simpler incarnations of internet communication--AIM, BBS, e-mail listservs, etc.--the most cutting-edge "technology" may be that which continues on in the best tradition of previous generations.
Jolie, it was great meeting you at the Social Media Camp in SF and thank you for addressing this topic here. While I personally, strongly believe that it’s important to know at least level 202/303 of technology, for that matter why not add questions to the survey which would require experts to know material from far more disciplines? From my experience, people come to social media from multiple disciplines including: SEO/Web analytics, marketing, PR & branding, business strategy, programming, journalism, industry research (e.g. Forrester) and so forth. My own background is in high-tech PR and marketing and I have to say, having knowledge of what a LAMP stack is, for example, has yet to come into play for any social media marketing-related project I’ve collaborated on, ever. That being said, I find myself searching out information on SEO, SMO, measurement, WordPress plug-ins, etc. Most clients I’ve run across speak in business terms and want consultants to help solve issues (e.g. engage customers); achieve a goal; generate awareness or participation using social media (e.g. launch a product/app); and, integrate with a larger traditional marketing plan, etc). They trust that we will assemble the right people and deploy best practices to address their business challenges or refer them to people that can.
Regarding the survey, some of your questions are not really technical per se but rather speak to having general fluency around the financial environment (e.g. which companies are profitable, stages of funding, etc) – and that’s smart knowledge to have, albeit, not critical to execute a social media strategy. At the agency I was at earlier in my career, our aim was always to know the technology as well or better than our clients so that we fundamentally knew it from a technical standpoint in order to communicate effectively with tech, vertical and analyst audiences, in addition to translating it for the business and/or consumer press. Having such a dedication to learning many aspects of social media is certainly a worthy goal!
Since the field is moving at such a rapid pace with new apps, widgets and channels out every month, you’d be hard pressed to find one “expert” who knew all sides of the coin, deeply – and that’s ok. My suggestion for the client is to look for partners who: (1) have tackled a similar situation to the one they face (2), can describe how they executed the plan and tracked results, and (3) who offer expertise either themselves or as part of a consultancy to address their specific business needs and deliver on any suggested strategy.
Cheers,
Carla, social media explorer
@carlainsf, @Socialbrite
This is rich, thank you.
For those who think knowledge of the technology does not matter, let me ask this:
Would you recommend a friend buy a diesel car, without telling them they can't just gas up anywhere?
If you don't know what I'm getting at with this analogy, then you're just proving Jolie's case.
(Sure, Mr. Moneybags. We'll be happy to set up your Wordpress site, we can install it right on your server...)