I have been selling SEO and online reputation management services since 2003 and I have been using SEO strategies since 1997. I have been doing “social media” on The Meta Network and ArtsWire since 1993, when it was called “virtual community” and only nerds did it. Actually, before then. In 1982 I was all about the ANSI BBS dial ups in Honolulu! Well, anyway…
Well, this afternoon, DomBrady said, on Twitter, “I had no idea there were so many Social Media marketers and SEO folks until twitter picked up last year,” and I replied, “@DomBrady There are a lot of SEO ‘experts’ out there. Not that many gurus, though. Lots of hustlers out there. Look for references.”
Well, this seems to be something that is in the minds of many people on Twitter and online. I tell my clients, “those folks who sold cell phones, then got Microsoft Certified, then became Mortgage Brokers, are now reinventing themselves as SEO and SEM experts. Be sure to check references.
Well, Kat French has it right when she wrote this over at 5 Social Media Topics I Could Do Without:
- Fake, sleazy, bad or just under-qualified, social media “experts.” Yes, I know they’re out there. Yes, it’s irritating. Yes, it makes it even harder for experienced practitioners to get credibility. Stop whining already. Life coaches, massage therapists, yoga instructors, SEOs, real estate agents and a dozen other career fields have been dealing with the same issue for way longer. All of them (except maybe SEOs) have realized ignoring them and doing great work is the best policy. Let’s follow suit.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Seems like this is a more popular topic over the past month.
Back in early March I wrote “Social Media Expert, defining impossibilities” due to the rampant number of folk who are claiming “expert” status and have no real way to gauge experience or expertise.
As you know, I am much like you… remembering the days of BBSing and baud-net.
Today anyone with a cell phone and a Twitter account seems to be an online expert about something.
It will quickly evolve or die, either way there is a lot of change in the next six months that very few professionals are prepared for.
Combine this with the economic situation in most companies, there are major players “falling prey” to the snake-oil of empty promises and unfounded observation.
Some people tell me that it will be, surely, the failure and the suffering imposed by companies that pretend to be experts and really are fraudsters that will end up channeling work to Abraham Harrison; however, I don’t want to get clients that way and I would prefer companies to just dot their “i’s” and dot their “t’s.”
This post, Chris, is so true, I believe. I too am stunned by the number of so-called and self-proclaimed social media and online marketing “gurus” and SEO advisors who may formerly have worked at Circuit City.
Well, I guess we just need to embrace them. They’re not all circuit city lay-offs, they’re also often off shore concerns as well, or a front man or salesman to an offshore company. I mean, if the company does good work, it doesn’t matter. My only concern is for the legitimacy of the space. The flood of SEO experts with little experience can turn this space into a joke as well as commoditize the field irreparably. Oh well, que sera, sera.