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Sometimes when I am being introduced to crowds during my speaking engagements, the emcee will use the phrase “social media expert” to introduce me even though I have probably submitted a bio which doesn’t use this term. It’s an easy thing to fall back on and I am not offended by it.

It does cause me to think and change my opening presentation every time it happens.

When someone calls themselves a social media “expert” or “ninja” or “guru” (whatever that means) they are overstating their abilities and their understanding of social media.

Let me be clear: There is no such thing as a social media expert. TWEET THIS

No one can be an expert at the various platforms because they all change and evolve on an almost daily basis. Not even Mark Zuckerberg is an expert at social media because he only knows the true in’s and out’s of Facebook and Instagram. He is making highly educated guesses (insert comment about opposition research here) at the true operations of Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and the other platforms.

If you are going to call yourself an expert at anything you had better be able to back it up with deep knowledge of everything involved with the subject matter.

Right before I filmed the video above I was using Facebook’s power editor function. I needed to go back to the main page of the program and the interface had been changed…while I was in the system. After a bit of a tutorial and experimentation, I was back on my feet again but it did slow me down. This is an example of how often and fast the technology of the platforms changes.

The title on my five social media certifications is “strategist” and that is how I refer to myself and prefer to be referred to when a title has to be applied to me. While I do know plenty about the technical aspects and functions of the major social media platform, I do not know everything.

What I do know is what strategies work to build and connect with audiences which will actually make your cash register ring, your candidate get elected, and your name to stay top of mind.

Here are a couple of basic audience building tips to get your strategy flowing:

No friends and family

Sure it’s cool to show your buddies from college what your company does and how your brand yourself every day. If you are a storefront business, say a coffee shop, you shouldn’t build up an audience of friends and family from the four corners of the world because they can never spend money with you. Your audience should be made up of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of social media users who can actually impact your bottom line. Anything else is pumping up false numbers for you and will quickly lead to online and real world frustration for you.

Speak from your knowledge/heart/personality

There are specialties professionals can be experts in. If you are the leading expert on free range tomatoes then speak from that point of expertise on social media. Since that is a made up thing, you are probably the only expert in that field but you will own that market online.

You should also use social media to show the real voices, personalities and other traits of your brand and your people. This is the perfect use of the platforms 1) because your audience wants to see behind the curtain and 2) it’s called social media for a reason.

Save the pitching for the mound

Less than 20{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} of the content you post to social media should be sales related. This especially applies to coupons, sales, and other bargains you want to promote in every tweet.

Anything more and two things will happen: 1) your audience will tune you out or 2) you will only develop a bunch of followers who want you for your discount prices. Building an audience of loyal customers and prospects who appreciate your business and your people will help you to build a healthy bottom line and save you plenty of frustration in the long run.

Follow our policy of educate, inform and entertain

Check out this post regarding how we approach our own social media efforts for The Rocket Group. You may find an idea or three which will work for you as well.

As always, be sure to connect with us on social media and email to stay ahead of your competition.

And beware of ninjas and gurus!

We spend a lot of time launching and managing social media campaigns for clients but there is also a big concentration in the office on our own posts, tweets, and other content.

The goal with our content falls into three categories: educate, inform and entertain. 

If the posts don’t do any of those three things we aren’t doing a good job for our audience.

The point of meeting those criteria is it forces us to create or curate content that you will stop and pay attention to. If we wanted to post coupons or discount prices all day long on Facebook, that is what you would come to expect from us (or any brand) and if the content didn’t do that you would quit engaging with it.

We educate through showing marketing techniques for use across the web and the real world. Sometimes this content is our own but mostly it comes from other sources. As a matter of fact, all brands should follow the 80-20 rule where the maximum of your own content is 20{628954cb2bad821921117287c23504a7919be1893c483613421612ad8712cddb} of what you post.

And your sales pitch content should only be 5{628954cb2bad821921117287c23504a7919be1893c483613421612ad8712cddb} of everything you post online.

There is also a large effort here to inform our audience of items we find interesting. We are big advocates for our home state of Missouri so you will see a lot of tweets about The Show-Me State. When we see career opportunities that fall into our audiences interests here in Missouri we share those as well (we actually have some great success with these types of tweets). Also, if there are contest, event, or even cool concert or sports happenings happening we share that information.

Look here: @StartupMO is sending a lucky/creative Missourian to #SXSW. Contest: http://t.co/y64D3ReeAB

— Gus Wagner (@RocketGroup) February 25, 2014

And of course we aim to entertain. The concert and sports tweets are part of that but we also add our pithy comments to retweets or Shared posts on Facebook. Doing so allows us to show personality which in turn helps to foster a relationship with you.

We always want you to have fun with marketing, and the work we can do together, so if you can read and watch our content and it makes you laugh or think – then we are doing our job.

The other thing we do with our own channels across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc is to use our own content as a laboratory to test new methods of posting, sharing, and creating. You will see more of this type of effort on our Facebook page but we experiment across the whole social spectrum.

It’s better to do this with our content than with client content!

As you will see on most of our blog content on this website, we experiment with video blogging as well. The videos are usually me sitting and having a conversation with you on a marketing topic. These are all filmed cold, with limited notes, in my office talking to the camera. The transcript of the video is then used to craft a post like this one. If you look at the video transcript and this content, they have the same theme but don’t neccesarily match up.

Our goal, as it is with client work and as it should be with your own marketing, is to drive you from social media to our website, to our email list, to a deeper connection, to a possible business opportunity.

We want to educate, inform and entertain you with our social media content. More importantly we want to become an asset and a partner for you as you navigate the waters of these ever-changing platforms.

Keep on coming back here to the website, follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, hit all the sharing and retweeting links you can and let’s talk about working together someday soon!

Thanks for the time,

Classes in the past have included Social Media 101, Social Media 201, Facebook 201, Twitter 101, Twitter 201 and a session on Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube. We do have a second round of classes planned to take place before the end of 2014 as well.

These classrooms are set up in a presentation format with open conversation and a hands on laboratory at the end of each one. I don’t leave until all of your questions are answered!

As your mid-Missouri membership organization embraces #AstroNetTurfRoots to engage with elected officials, there are a few things we recommend you steer clear of. 

The Top 6 Things to Avoid in #AstroNetTurfRoots:

1. Being a Pest: Don’t use ‘form letter’ type messaging, and don’t blindly attack people who have no idea who you are. People who behave this way online are called ‘frequent flyers’ and they are largely ignored and dismissed — and blocked.
2. Forgetting City and County Leaders: Regulations that impact you are often occurring at or being discussed at this level.
3. Trolling: Don’t attack, start online fights, or join existing online fights. Be professional.
4. Avoiding Respectful Disagreement: Don’t be afraid to follow and sensibly engage with your loyal and respected opposition. (You’ll be surprised when you need to expand your base of allies who will step forward.)
5. Using PR-Speak: Use personal terms, and speak honestly.
6. “Thomas Dolby”-ing Them: Don’t try to “Thomas Dolby” officials in your interactions, blinding them with science.

If your membership organization is trying to engage with and influence the hearts and minds of elected officials in Missouri, don’t miss this post on the 17 Ways Membership Organizations Can Practice #AstroNetTurfRoots