The greatest endorsement of your professional career is when someone you have worked with before comes back to get you for their new gig. This doesn't happen often in a lifetime, but when it does it feels great!
Trying to trump up your linkedIN credentials by recommending someone you hardly know, or exchanging recommendations with someone that has zero history of working with you is a pretty risky business in the first place. Doing it where professionals are discussing the business of eMarketing is both ironic and misguided. (This new Expert? Discussion on LinkedIN has been started to see if we can learn from what happened.)
Today the social media expert and SEO expert fan killed the group that created them. Before this group, these were just two ordinary snake oil salesmen on LinkedIN. Not that they didn't have legitimate businesses, they did. But somewhere along the way to credibility they decided to pull one over on the professional crowd here on linkedIN and represent themselves as "experts."
It's a hard term: expert. It denotes not only mastery, but a long history of execution, in what ever field the shingle happens to be put up. In this case it was social media and SEO. While these are buzz terms, the science behind both of them is fairly well known, if you are working in the field. So when someone comes out and represents themselves as a "expert," unless they are Seth Godin or Thomas Freidman… well, they might not be experts.
I will spare you the gory details of the skirmish that followed, but for some reason I was irritated just enough to turn the corner after they attacked me on my first post to the thread, and I went to work to illuminate the fallacy of their self-proclaimed expertise.
I guess I have to ask myself why I did it.
1. joy of repartee
2. a duel to the death
3. if trolls are going to gang up on people, there should be some advocates that fight back
4. the conversation in many forums relies of very few conversationalists, everyone else is a lurker
5. when someone ventures in to an interesting forum, and says their piece, they should not be attacked because they disagree with you
6. the case study would be amazing if they kept up their idiocy
They should not be attacked at all. BUT… If you do feel that they are spreading misinformation or lying or bullying others into silence, well… that steams me up. I admit to getting somewhat self-righteous.
Last summer I went tweet to tweet with a local writer. Blood was shed. Twitter armies were mobilized. Accounts were blocked. And legend was made. At least that's my side of the story.
So tonight ends the era of the CRAPsters, the CRAP brothers, or "the twins" as I liked to call them once we got into a rhythm. They have killed the group that was an accidental phenomenon and their only claim to social media experience. If you are going to call social media crap, and use odd txt-like spellings like su-ks and rant that the HYPE is a lie and that ROI rules… If you believe that to be true, then stick to your guns.
But if you don't have the data to back it up and you are merely laying in wait for linkedIN folks to wander into the discussion, take the bait and issue their case study, "It IS working for me like this…" If that is your plan or your plan B once things get rolling, it is a hard sell to then turn and say you were merely trying to start the conversation, and "actually" you were pretty smart about social media, AND in fact, while no one was looking you became an expert…
That's where the wheels fell off for me. My first post was this.
"If you are going to fall on your own sword, you might as well make it a big harry one. The only media is social, you goof!"
In my mind, a good-natured jab at the pontificating initiator of the group.
Boy did that guy uncork a can of whoopass on me. He was never able to see straight after I engaged further in the discussion as he attacked. I assume he was used to winning. And having others bow out and leave. And he had a friend to was calling himself an SEO expert at the same time his main site was pulling a google page rank of ZERO. Something was out of whack. Seriously out of whack.
Digging a little bit into their connections, I found that the instigator had actually attacked the joiner a few hundred posts back. But somewhere in the discussion, long before my time in the group, they formed a pact, wrote and posted cross-scratching endorsements of one another's work in SEO or social media.
WHAT? My mind ached. My joy of war peaked. And I loaded my quiver and went to battle.
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/experts-of
Additional humor: at one point these geniuses decided they would PDF the entire discussion group (I don't know who's idea this was) and use it as an enticement to get people to leave this group, now toxic, and join their new group. As I laughed aloud I typed flight after flight of arrows into the group asking, "How does a PDF of a live discussion even make sense?" I never got an answer. Nor did I see that they had created an update after the next several hundred posts. After a while they quit marketing their new group with "the PDF of this group." Quite a few people Private Messaged me to say they agreed. I even have a copy of the V3 of the PDF if anyone wants to see it.
[As a response to some of the comments here, and more so the comments I got as part of the LinkedIN viral discussion, I have launched a NING community site to rally around the best ways to deal with TROLLS who attack. And more importantly the Trolls who threaten. Please join us at Social Media is Not Hate (Ning) You might be member #2! And you can find a new LinkedIN discussion questioning the use of the term "expert" in your linkedIN bio: http://bit.ly/experts-of-2]
Granted there's not a lot of similarity, but here is a linkedIN group that is going viral as well. Quotes! Who'da thunk? http://bit.ly/quotes-linkedin
The whole post thread. Watch for Trolls along the path, cause they are hoppin mad today!
Nice Shot – How long's it been since you've seen the Matrix?
Social Media Proves Successful as ROI for Business, LinkedIN Group Flames On
Challenge ROI, Challenge the Model, but Social Media Means Real Business
Social Media Being Challenged: CRAP? For Business? Really?
A Bit 'o Humor at the Experts Expense: The SEO Expert said to the SM Expert
The Red Badge of Courage: Haiti Needs Everyone's Help (JAN 19-10 update 5)
My MLK Manifesto 2010: I have a dream… I wish social media could be used to…
A Pirate's Life for Meeeee: Now about this Duck Song Thing? (Waddle Waddle Waddle)
Crazy Little Thing Called Love: If You Can't Say Something Nice… Well, Shout It
Drawing the Circles Around LinkedIN Contacts – Social Media for Business of Any Size
Does LinkedIN Create Business via Social Media Networking?
LinkedIN Gets Social: Is it Viral or CRAP? You Decide.
Well, at least we have the Teletransporter to help us out when we get in a bind of ethical proportions.
It's easy to point at Chris Brogan, Seth Godin and a handful of others and get the idea of "thought leadership on social media." And in this tender young enterprise the definition would be spot on. Both Chris and Seth WORK it and then they THINK about and LEAD conversations for the rest of us. But what about "the rest of us" hoping to add value and make some insightful observations about social media? What does "thought leadership" mean exactly?
