Well here goes my 1st blog posting written on OMM Writer, headphones on and soothing sounds in the background. Who would’ve thought there’d ever be a substitute to that “word” app?

Anyway, lemme tell you what is on my mind today?

It is the concept of a SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT and what that actually means…

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t read something in a newspaper, web site, blog or in an email invitation to an event about some SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT!

That got me thinking……

What exactly is a social media expert and who qualifies?

I could think of 3 reasons why some-one would consider themselves a social media expert:

1. They know stats:

• Did you know there are now 316 million+ people on facebook?
• Did you know there are close to 30 million tweets every day?
• Did you know there are 100 million + videos on YouTube?

This person always pulls out the stats and use those to make their case. ( really one of my favourites too!)

2. They have their own social media presence:

• Have a blog (or 2, or 3 …)
• Have a twitter following
• Have facebook, linkedin, friendfeed, myspace, blueworld, etc profile.

( I do have more than one of each of the above.)

3. They have done stuff on social media for clients:

• Set-up a bank on facebook
• Set-up a college on twitter
• Set-up a band on MySpace
• Set-up a blog for a travel company

( That’s me too!)

So, does this indeed entitle them to have the designation, SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT, behind their name?

Does this allow them to claim they know more than every-one else and that they can charge for their expertise accordingly?

I really can’t say.

Reading “The Tipping Point” 10 years after it was published is quite an eye opener. The connectors, as Malcolm Gladwell calls them, did not have any tweets, wall postings or RSS feeds at their disposal. They are simply people that know how to connect with others.

Either they care about people in general, have a wide scope of interests or participate in varied activities. They therefore get in touch with a great number of people and are the real social connectors.

Do you need to be an expert to GET that?

Is social media not merely an online extension of good old fashioned face-to-face networking?

In my opinion, there are online social media experts. Plenty of them. They are not the people however, that speak at conferences, write books or charge for their services.

They are students, academics, business people, mothers, environmetalists, sportsmen and women who ARE connected in any case because of their passions, interests and networks. Social media is merely an extension of their networks and a tool they use to manage those relationships, be it strong ties or the so-called “weak ties.”

They are the ones that understand the power of the online social network and use it to their advantage. Very seldom, I dare say, do they do so for financial gain.

Next time you hear of a social media expert, ask yourself what qualifies that person to call him/herself an expert.

Posted by a wannabe social media expert.

and now, the real launch:

Before:

Each culture, each society, each landmark has its own theme, its own history, its own language. But maybe one day we will all be the same; we will all be grey cats after midnight…
That day is here. And the internet is our connection, our language.
Globalisation has led to languages being incorporated into one another, meaning slang has taken over most of the traditional languages. But as native languages have sunk into the mix, so has the internet expanded into a world wide language that connects everyone and communicates with everyone.
A while back people struggled to communicate with each other and often misinterpreted what was meant, but through the internet, we can all understand, learn, give our opinion and communicate in a sense that everyone understands.
Thus the internet has not only opened up doors for marketing, advertising, and businesses, it has also contributed to a whole new community that can share stories and connect.
Therefore I conclude with MWEB’s slogan, that says it all: CONNECT AND YOU CAN!

We have become so engaged with blogging that we might have lost the sense of meaning along the way. So here is a little recap:
According to Wikipedia, a blog is a short form of the term “web log”.
“A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.”
But does blogging live up to be all this? The answer is no. Blogging has become much more than a few sentences and short descriptions! It has almost become a way of life!
From writing your opinions, to commentaries, to bad or good services or experiences, to even a single parent asking how to raise his baby daughter! It is mind-blowing when you think about all the topics that people blog about. And when you let your mind go, you will realize the possibilities that lie in all these blogs.
In December 2007, Technorati tracked more than 112,000,000 blogs! Imagine one of these blogs is written about your company, whether it is negative or positive, the impact is amazing. Of course not every blog owner has a long list of readers, but someone might end up on that blog one day and it might just be that they are impacted by what that blogger has said.
A very good example is a well-known estate in the Western Cape. Someone came to visit the farm and had a bad experience at the restaurant and blogged about it. This quickly came to the attention of the person in charge of the social media of the estate. He contacted the blogger, apologized for the inconvenience and handled the situation in a positive manner. This lead to a blog about the quick response of the estate. What a way to turn things around! It’s like a new way of doing PR!
If you have not yet realized the impact that blogs have on the business environment, the time is now! Otherwise you may loose valuable customers. It is not about keeping the consumer in the shop happy anymore; the cyberspace community also needs to be considered.
That is the main thing traditional ways of communication tend to neglect. If you neglect online, you neglect your company’s future!

The thing about making marketing on the internet more effective, this is from the point of view of a consumer, is that the information needs to be interesting and not boring.  It may seem as though I am repeating myself but there is a huge difference.  For example, I was reading an article a while back about the growth of the internet and how it has become a part life. To me it was a very interesting topic and it was well brought across.   The article was interesting and the point of the article was clear, but the thing is that it carried on for far too long. After a bit of reading it was almost as if I was reading the same thing over and over and that was where the whole thing became boring and lost my attention.

As a consumer you want to know what you want and if you don’t, you want to have clear indicators to lead you in the right direction.  The thing is that there are so many confusing sites and though we ‘navigate’ them we are just playing around hoping that we find what we are looking for.  A site that is direct and clear makes one feel that you are in control and you feel good about using the internet even though you know that the whole thing has nothing to do with how you did what you did.

So back to my point, people use the internet because it is easy and convenient not because they feel like reading and the library is doing stock take.  You get what you need and the rest is left for the next person to come along.  Reading a blog is to get away from the conformity of the news and the media, getting things from a different point of view and to make things a bit more interesting, people just tend to get too carried away with the whole thing.

The whole era of the internet is make things work and that is the long and short of it.