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Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

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Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#61

Post by fbailey »

Here's the story of a so called social media expert: My story. I've been working at various online projects, startups and agencies since 1998 (or 1999 I'm not sure). For the last 8 years I've mostly done consulting in the UX area and some related strategic areas (product development, focus, features...). More and more communities came to me with questions about their features , their UX issues and how to build communities. Since UX social design is pretty interesting, I was happy with that, but then something changed. In the last years more and more brands came to me and asked for social media advice, at first I resisted. I gave them advice, but I didn't see it as a strategic opportunity, by then we had grown to a small consultancy and I saw no moat or specific knowledge we could use.

Because ... well after all Social Media is easy isn't it? It's just using Facebook and Twitter and nearly everybody can do it. I'm a hacker (a nontechnical hacker who knows what lisp is and how to get a database to scale) i thought marketing is stupid, I want to work on cool stuff.

But something happened in the last 2 years, I analyzed how the behaviour of users changed. I helped building brands on social media. I saw the difficulties of people that had active and succesful twitter accounts in developing a succesful strategy for a a company.

I now see Social Media Consulting as a central part of our business and we have a moat, it's knowledge. Managing a Facebook Account with 1.000.000 likes is not easy and it has nothing to do with using Facebook as a personal tool. The term social media ist still stupid but I no longer have a problem calling myself a social media expert. Expertise is a relative term even a local Social Media expert with 800 followers might be perfect for his clients. Using social platforms for strategic communication purposes is not easy.

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#62

Post by uurayan »

This is so true, especially in areas outside of the hot tech scenes. Social media is such a buzz word these days you have people coming out of the wood work to cash in on it. These "experts" take advantage of the more traditional companies who are looking to develop a social media strategy simply for the fact they they alway hear about it on traditional media. Most of these "experts" have no social proof or reason to be called experts, they just lable themselves. You can say the businesses hiring these people are to blame, but when you know absolutely nothing on a subject how do you even know if you're teacher is bad?

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#65

Post by bennesvig »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #47
charlesju wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://twitter.com/#!/garyvee Nothing else, he has 850k followers on Twitter. Mostly organic. I think it is safe to say, 99.5% of "Social Media Experts" do not have 500k+ followers.

How do you arrive at the conclusion that his follower list is "mostly organic?" It's true that having over 500k followers puts you in the top 700 Twitter users. It's equally true that having over 500k followers does not automatically make someone a "social media expert" (Donald Trump, Lindsay Lohan, & Nicole Richie are in that list - I don't think I'd hire them for social media strategy). Is it also true that you can…

It seems like you're not very familiar with Gary. I've been following him online since mid 2008 back when he had maybe 13,000 followers. He relentlessly hustled online to get where is today as an "internet celebrity." By putting out videos on a regular basis, responding to an insane amount of tweets, doing live video streams, TV, and keynotes, each of those built him up to a credible social media voice.

It's also not fair to compare him to celebrities like Trump or Lohan. They were already famous when they joined Twitter. Gary started at the bottom. I have no idea what he's done for clients with social media, but in terms of his own personal brand, he has crushed it (pun intended).

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#66

Post by nametoremember »

sbierwagen wrote: post #51
nametoremember wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there was any need for that tone or the three questions. There is a local Chinese takeaway near me. Walking distant. Before, the only way they could communicate with me is through leaflets in the door. Now I can see their updates in my newsfeed. This _is_ revolutionary. Just because people abuse a phrase doesn't mean it is not relevant.

For a horrifying, timeless moment, I thought you were serious. I thought you were some kind of Paul Carr-level social media twat, and that you genuinely thought that a Chinese restaurant spamming you via facebook rather than via paper was a legitimate advance in technology. Then I looked at your other comments, and realized that I had just been trolled so hard that it had more in common with a religious experience th…

Ok I will play.

Firstly, to get this out of the way, your attitude doesn't really belong on HN and these petty arguments don't contribute to the discussion.

Let's look at how I believe it is revolutionary for the Chinese restaurant.

* They now have an easier, more convenient and better way to contact and be in constant contact with their customers.

* They have pretty good data on their customers. Their ages, their genders, their education status and more.

* Easier transition to online business. If they decided to provide an online service they already have an attentive customer base to work from.

For what it is worth, I do think most "social media experts" are full of waffle.

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#67

Post by nametoremember »

saucerful wrote: post #35
nametoremember wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there was any need for that tone or the three questions. There is a local Chinese takeaway near me. Walking distant. Before, the only way they could communicate with me is through leaflets in the door. Now I can see their updates in my newsfeed. This _is_ revolutionary. Just because people abuse a phrase doesn't mean it is not relevant.

But surely now you're the sarcastic one! If you two really believe that this stuff is revolutionary, I am embarrassed by how low the bar is for my generation.

Facebook is now a massive company with businesses, both big and small, signing up at an incredible rate. While I believe a lot of hype surrounds "social media", I think that it can be used correctly to a businesses advantage.

There's no reason to be embarrassed btw.

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#68

Post by [deleted] »

nametoremember wrote: post #66
sbierwagen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a horrifying, timeless moment, I thought you were serious. I thought you were some kind of Paul Carr-level social media twat, and that you genuinely thought that a Chinese restaurant spamming you via facebook rather than via paper was a legitimate advance in technology. Then I looked at your other comments, and realized that I had just been trolled so hard that it had more in common with a religious experience th…

Ok I will play. Firstly, to get this out of the way, your attitude doesn't really belong on HN and these petty arguments don't contribute to the discussion. Let's look at how I believe it is revolutionary for the Chinese restaurant. * They now have an easier, more convenient and better way to contact and be in constant contact with their customers. * They have pretty good data on their customers. Their ages, their ge…

[deleted]

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#69

Post by [deleted] »

sbierwagen wrote: post #51
nametoremember wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there was any need for that tone or the three questions. There is a local Chinese takeaway near me. Walking distant. Before, the only way they could communicate with me is through leaflets in the door. Now I can see their updates in my newsfeed. This _is_ revolutionary. Just because people abuse a phrase doesn't mean it is not relevant.

For a horrifying, timeless moment, I thought you were serious. I thought you were some kind of Paul Carr-level social media twat, and that you genuinely thought that a Chinese restaurant spamming you via facebook rather than via paper was a legitimate advance in technology. Then I looked at your other comments, and realized that I had just been trolled so hard that it had more in common with a religious experience th…

[deleted]

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)

#70

Post by jaysonelliot »

garyvee wrote: post #53
jaysonelliot wrote: post #31

Of course Vaynerchuk would say that - he's got his own "Social Media Expert" consulting business. http://vaynermedia.com/ "Social media experts are mostly clowns! Except me. You can trust me."

Jaysonelliot I so get where you are coming from and I respect it, I really hate how sometimes we don't do a good job explaining where we are coming from and I did that here, I dont want to get business from this I was just referring to the issue at hand that this stuff needs to be looked at from a business sense not just saying here is "social media" I really respect your thoughts and please know if you knew me bette…

Totally fair.

You made good points in the interview - my comment was made more in a spirit of good-natured ribbing, although I have to admit that the tone did not convey that properly.

I'm actually quite familiar with the work you've done, and have a lot of respect for you.

It's just too tempting to tweak anyone who speaks in hyperbole.

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