Social media was made for amateurs.

It’s easy to use. The more intuitive a service or network is, the better it does. It’s not complicated. In fact, the beauty of it is how delightfully uncomplicated it is. It makes sense, it enables us to do what we  like to do best: socialize, connect, learn and grow. It just makes it easier and faster.

So I’ve had it with the whole “who is an expert and who isn’t” debate. Being an expert is not what it’s all about. Have you noticed that the only people arguing about it are the ones who work in this space anyways?

I wasn’t going to write about it. I wasn’t going to be a part of that noise, but honestly, I just can’t take it anymore.

The only reason there are social media consultants in the first place is because companies and brands weren’t built to work like humans. Individuals will find it fairly easy to naturally adapt to social media, whereas businesses find it “strange” and contrary to how they’ve done business over the last X number of years. Enter social media experts/managers/consultants/etc. They explain to businesses why it’s important and essentially how to behave properly and be successful here.

You’re doing it right if the company you’re advising is achieving successful results (however they’ve defined that based on their goals) and they’ve begun to act like a human – creating personal connections with their customers.

My coworker, Dustin, told me a story the other day about his friend who goes to the same cafe on a regular basis. He struck up a conversation with the manager about Twitter and how the business could use it. His only qualifications were 1) He was a frequent customer 2) He uses Twitter and 3) He knew what he would want. He wasn’t an expert. He doesn’t even work in this industry. He is an amateur. And you know what? The ideas he had were pretty insightful.

I’ve realized that my goal should be to think like an amateur, not an expert.

The amateur model of social media:

1) Think about the customers and their needs. If you’re not one yourself, find some to talk to.

2) Find out what social networks and services those customers use online. Where do they go and why?

3) Put those two together to figure out what they would want from this business online.

4) (or the *bonus* step) Learn, adapt and try again. Experts have to know it all, amateurs have the advantage of being able to continually grow and learn from their mistakes. It makes them a little more versatile in an ever changing world like Socialmedialand.

I’ll continue to give you my (amateur) opinion on social media and it’s uses – you can disagree with me, you can do things differently, and we can learn from each others’ experiences. But let’s stop arguing over who’s the expert. Ok?

Thank you.

Photo credit: www.amoeba.com