Social Media S&M

February 11, 2009

Posted in Web Industry.

I’ve been mercilessly teased lately for calling myself a “social media advocate.” As oAk says, there’s no title easier to adopt than that of “social media expert.” Congratulations, you use the web.

I call myself a “social media advocate” because I enjoy the pain.

Sure, there are the meetings where clients eagerly ask about Twitter and wondering how it could help them.

But the real challenge – the thing I love – is enlightening clients who previously thought of the web as a “I have to do this” kind of thing. They want brochure websites (or “billboard websites”, as I heard them called other day). And we’re very good at those. But that’s only one tool, and it’s not always the most effective vehicle. Plus, this whole online world of transparency and human interaction scares the crap out of clients who feel understaffed and overworked.

There are opportunities all over the place for clients to take advantage of the tools that many of us take for granted. So I’ll continue to educate clients and advocate for new tools that they haven’t considered. It’s not easy, but I’ll take the challenge and all the pain that comes with it.

1 Comment

  1. oak — February 12, 2009

    i hesitate to say that “social media expert” is the easiest title you can give yourself because it’s neck and neck with “blogger.” I’m almost leaning towards “blogger” as being easier because, technically, one post makes you a blogger. Social Media Experts at LEAST have to go through the rigamarole of setting up a Facebook profile and a Twitter account and then either studiously adding ten thousand random contacts or going to the trouble of tracking down some sort of bot program that will do it for them.