There are lots of people throwing “social media expert” out there. Hell, I had it as part of my “about” on my blog, but I’ve chosen to just say that I advise people. It’s more accurate, because expertise is fairly darned fleeting out there right now. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about things I want a so-called expert to know (and I want you to add to this list, or call me out if you disagree):
Strategic
- Which department you think your role should fall into.
- How your role ties to marketing, PR, advertising, R&D, finance, HR, sales.
- What tasks you’d expect a community manager to perform, and how would you measure them.
- How you expect a company to engage in “the conversation,” and what processes will go into place to make any of that matter.
- How to turn blog posts into business leads.
- How to listen and find where people are talking about you.
- Ways to report your weekly listening and community work to a very senior level person in a huge company that has about 2 minutes of time to hear your briefing.
- Know about 100 people in the space who are doing something. The more diverse the profession and location, the better.
- How to launch and operate a blogger outreach campaign.
- How to tie other media into social media as an integrated campaign.
Tactical
- How to install a blog (pick your software) on a hosted server.
- How to edit the sidebar to include a widget, or an embed, or anything.
- How to create, edit, and post at least one other type of media besides text.
- At least five social network accounts active, including but not limited to: LinkedIn, Yahoo! Groups, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
- How to find and subscribe to a podcast WITHOUT using iTunes.
- Five stats worth knowing for any blog/website.
- How to structure a blog post so that humans and Google like it.
I’m thinking there are probably another 40 things I could add to either list, but instead, I’m going to let YOU. (Ones that I agree with will go up into the main post until we have a pretty decent list.)
And remember, call me out if you disagree. What’s your take on what you expect a social media expert to know?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com].
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Photo credit, Joe Shlabotnik
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress
Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.
With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like ChrisBrogan.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.
- Go on a guided video tour of Thesis and see the amazing things you can do with this theme! Seriously, you’ll love it.
- Check out the Thesis demo site
- See more Thesis-based sites in the gallery showcase





