Beware of 'Drive-By' Advice from Gurus
No, social media isn't rocket science or brain surgery, but if it's done right, it IS well thought out and strategic. And thought out and strategic has a much higher chance of being effective and achieving your goals.
So, when you get a so-called 'social media guru' delving out advice without taking the time to know the audience or the landscape, what you are getting is not only unhelpful, but potentially harmful.
This week's video is all about how that drive-by advice is not only harmful to a brand, but also to the discipline as a whole. Lawyers won't give legal advice without knowing the full picture. Accountants won't give advice without knowing your full financial story. Doctors won't diagnose you without testing. Even PR professionals don't offer off-the-cuff advice without taking note of the landscape.
We take lawyers, accountants, doctors and many other professionals seriously because they actually take the time to learn about our individual situations, then give recommendations. Even better, they stick around to implement and adjust if needed. That's really what social media professionals (and marketing - digital and otherwise) need to do as well.
If you ever want to be taken seriously, stop it. Strategy isn't tactics.
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Truly Social is a web series that you can share with your boss or client when they're not really "getting" social. It's also the name of my company - where we work with clients on helping them develop their own content series.
I've been working on this social stuff for over 18 years and I've been a participant in the social web since 1992. My videos (usually) come out every SUNDAY ...with ~5 minute "lessons" on what are truly social practices (and what are NOT).
Personal trainer at Birmingham Ultimate Fitness
7 年Kathryn Buczkowski
Healthy Labs || Co-Founder & CTO
7 年You'd be a really bad doctor if you showed up at the scene of a car crash and demanded to run tests before you provided any sort of assessment. You'd be a bad accountant if you couldn't give some valuable general advice on tax avoidance, or if you refused to talk in meetings until you could account for every last dollar. In any profession, there is sort of a bayesian arc as more information allows for a shift from generic best practices towards increasingly personalized advice with the introduction of additional data. Professionals apply a complex framework to problems, but this framework is fixed over the short term. What that means is that it is literally one strategy fits all, it's just not one action fits all. The idea that the right strategy is situation specific confuses actions with strategies. A good strategy is typically comprised of an array of logic trees. The same input results in a different output, but the function is identical. It's easy to speak to the function if you actually understand it. The problem is people who are using a bad framework altogether to approach the problem. While there is a world of charlatan gurus who aren't any good at their jobs, it isn't impossible to give valuable, generic advice about any profession.
Jack Of All Trades at Safeway
7 年What's the Strategy--That's the Many Questions Always Been Asked. Great Guidance and Advice. Good Question: Where is it Leading Up To? Are We Talking About How Many Social Media Pages? Or Is That Not The Case Here!
Founder @ Path Creative | Content Marketing, Branding, Digital Marketing Ecosystems
7 年This video made me so happy. Thank you.