I know it is only Tuesday but what is annoying me already is that the week has started very repetitive already! Not naming names but I am amazed at the amount of “Experts“, “Influencers” or Social Media Experts” that several organisations such as Forbes amongst others promote in the “Top 10”, “Top 20” or “Top 50” tables – how can these people actually be taken seriously? OK, they may have ‘tens of thousands’ or ‘hundreds of thousands’ of followers, liker’s or subscribers but are they really that good? If you take for example their use of Social Media – they fall into two camps:-
- Constant posting – once or twice an hour or more, creating at least 50 or more posts a day but nothing else
or
- As above but with the odd personalised message or never ever actually taking part in a conversation
So, are these people who constantly post and share one way, real experts or influencers? Take a further a look at what they are posting, yes they are posting worldwide, but when you, say take a week, look at all the posts and you will have repetition! Furthermore, they are posting information for you read (and sometimes including New or Just Released in the message) and yet when you click on the link included in their post, you will notice that it is months old, from earlier this year or last year – in some cases two or more years old! Thus, based on the above – can these people be the actual people to learn and educate you or your business from? Constant posting and re-posting – is this educational to you? Virtually all one way traffic – again is this helpful?
I am not saying the information they provide is wrong but – you could say what tipped me over the edge! – when a message was received today, it was telling “X has just released this – learn how this can help by their new Y facility“, I thought this is going to be interesting. So, I clicked the link and was prepared to be educated and there it was, an article from last April about company X launching a facility on their Y service! Yet, this Y service is something that is widely known and used by everyone who uses that service. Furthermore, on checking, this post had already been posted several times over the past week previously – exactly the same and not with a single change or mention that it a repeat of previous post! Therefore, I ask you, who are you following and why? What do you expect to learn from them? I suggest that you look back over their posts for the last week and consider this:-
- How many times an hour are they posting?
- Are they posting every single hour?
- Do any of their posts actually contain names?
- If there are names, are they actually replying or engaging with their audience?
- Or are they just actually replying by saying ‘Thank You for following me”?
- How many of the posts are repeated?
- Also, look at the links and then click-through and see the dates of articles – how many are older than 18th of November 2013?
- Do these posts make reference to the fact they are old articles or re-posts?
So, now you have looked and discovered this, let me again ask you, are you really following the right Experts, Inspirers or Mentors? For me, I have taken a view to look further, are these people any good? Do they have a background and what have they done? When you look at most of those people, all they seem to have done is provide information but not really from a business background where they have had any real experience of running a business or the responsibility it carries? Now, I have re-evaluated who I follow and engage with, as I want to be learning and discovering new things from people who are constantly evolving – society and technology is evolving! So, I want to develop and evolve with them – can the people above be mentioned in the same way? The answer is NO! In my opinion, I would like to throw a few names to you all for you to consider and these include:-
- Angela Clarke – @TheAngelaClarke – www.angelaclarke.co.uk
- Bill Grimsey – @BillGrimsey – www.vanishinghighstreet.com
- Brad Burton – @BradBurton – www.bradburton.biz
- Jacqueline Gold – @Jacqueline_Gold – www.jacquelinegold.com
- James Cann – @jamescaan – www.james-caan.com
- Lucy P. Marcus – @lucymarcus – www.marcusventures.com
- Martha Lane-Fox – @Marthalanefox – www.marthalanefox.com
- Melonie Dodaro – @MelonieDodaro – www.TopDogSocialMedia.com
- Mike Ames – @Mike_Ames_Flair – www.flair.co.uk
- Mike Pitt – @TheMikePitt – www.marketingfundamentals.com
- Neal Schaffer – @NealSchaffer – www.maximizeyoursocial.com
- Nigel Botterill – @nigelbotterill – www.nigelbotterill.com
- Penny Power – @pennypower – www.pennypower.co.uk
- Rachel Elnaugh – @RachelElnaugh – www.rachelelnaugh.com
- Robert Scoble – @Scobleizer – www.pennypower.co.uk
- Simon Porter – @simonlporter – www.uk.linkedin.com/in/simonlporter
- Susanna Gebauer – @dreckbaerfrau – www.exploreb2b.com
- Theo Paphitis – @TheoPaphitis – www.theopaphitis.com
- Thomas Power – @thomaspower – www.rebelmouse.com/thomaspower/
Note – Name links are through to their entry on Wikipedia whilst Twitter and Websites go through to their respective sites
Whilst I may not agree with all their points of view, tweets, posts or comments, these people are ones that I have engaged with, happy to share their content and their comments are both educational and informative. All their comments are direct and fresh – no repeats (unless you count re-tweets) – so all covering the latest news and events to keep you both informed and educated too…. Thus, when choosing the people to follow and engage with, make sure they engage in a”Two Way Street” and “Are An Innovator and Educator” – so, don’t go for repetition, old news and a one way street, lead the way to put yourself on the path to success like these people have…..
9 Responses
A number of the ‘experts’ have become channels and brands, and have lost the ability to converse with people. This, of course, means they’ve abandoned social media, which is pretty ironic 🙂
So very true Chris and one they forget as soon as they start have an income stream just from posting!
Who is actually doing the tweeting? The “experts” or social media managers who have daily/weekly “tweet” and “follower” targets to achieve as part of their KPI’s. The problem here is quality control as managers are just measuring the numbers rather than the quality of the post. Your visit to a website from clicking through on Twitter validates what they do. The key is that we have to monitor this ourselves and repeat offenders should be unfollowed. There is plenty of great content being posted out there. Real “experts” don’t have the time to post 20 times a day or the inclination to repeat links to tired old content. So if you do unfollow you will have lost little.
Excellent comments Eddie and gratefully received. All posts, comments and tweets I do, are done by myself but I know what you mean.
Great post Ian! The trouble is that people often don’t understand the importance of engaging and connecting with others on social media, they just see it as a platform to ‘tell’ people things. They are often posting old information because they have been looking for info online and not checked for themselves how old that article is. The ‘network’ part of social media is often forgotten and replaced with ‘pitching’.
You are very right Carol – as an example, I have in last 24 hours had over 10 tweets from many well know Social Media people who have over 75,000 followers on Twitter each plus the same number of followers on Facebook as well; yet these tweets all contain links to posts and articles from over months ago, sometimes last year!
What makes this worst, is that some of the articles are about using Social Media and what they can do for you, yet these platforms have been updated by many versions in some cases.
Thus, how can these people be credible to follow and take advice from?
The answer is in the question I think. The thing is that these people are succeeding on getting followers where others are failing!
You are so true and sometimes a blog can really turn things around for you too if you engage with the right people who see the benefit and meaning of what you write…
Very sound advice 🙂