What to do when someone questions your expertise in social media.
I have many LOL moments throughout the day, but lately, the content I’ve seen with social media professionals bickering over job titles and new business tactics surpass any YouTube video I’ve received through GChat. This post is going to be really long so prep your eyeballs.
Calling yourself an expert in any field boosts your self esteem and makes you feel like you’ve added something to your net-worth. I’m an expert at a lot of things (punching, typing, walking, drinking, to name a few).
So what happens when you really think you’re awesome at something (or have a really great idea), and someone comes and shouts “Hey, you’re an idiot” in your face? What do you do? Well, you would have three options.
1. Ignore
2. Fight Back
3. Try to Resolve.
I’m going to use Olivier Blanchard and Mari Smith’s *public quarrel as an example of what to do when someone questions your expertise in social media .
Summary: Mari heads up a self-proclaimed international social media organization and is running against Almitra for the Favorite Social Media Maven spot in the open web awards. Mari wants to make some cash. She decides that she wants to share some of the stuff she’s learned in her 5 years of being a social media guru. Mari wants to help all the other aspiring social media experts out there by offering a Social Media Certification program, in which participants can learn every-single aspect of becoming a successful social media specialist. At the end of the program, you will even be awarded with the credential of your choice (CSMS or CSMC – Certified Social Media Specialist or Certified Social Media Strategist or Certified Social Media Consultant)! All this and a bag of chips in the range of a mere $3,000.
Olivier is a kind of hot social media dude who runs his own brand consulting and management firm. He’s got upwards of 15,000 followers on Twitter and is on the advisory board of a popular social media news source. He’s well respected in the social media community and has a bunch of clients who seem to be kept confidential (as I haven’t found a list anywhere as of yet). He also speaks 4 languages, so is therefore, international.
Igniting Fire: Mari needs help coming up with content for her training seminar and decides to ask Olivier for help. She sends him an email (which I’m stealing off of Olivier’s blog post):
Hope you are having a fabulous day! My name is (…) and I work with (…) and (…) for The International Social Media Association, (ISMA).
Both (…) and (…) have expressed that you are absolutely amazing. You bring so much knowledge with such excitement to the social media world. Thank you for everything you do!
ISMA would love to invite you to be on our Certification Training Webinar on Thursday, December 10th from 2pm – 3:30pm est. as our featured guest trainer! For your benefit, you will be able to get great exposure and be known as the “Obvious Expect” within your niche!
Would you be able to accept this invitation? We would be so honored.
Here is the information if you do accept. Topic:
Social Media Objectives & ROI – Session 14 (December 10, 2009) 2-3pm est
* Setting social media objectives
* Create social media budget
* Tracking & measuring ROI
* Q&AYou will need to provide a Power Point Presentation and send it to us so we can upload it onto our server and a short bio and your picture.
The training with your power point is usually 1 hour and then it is followed with a Q & A session.
Please call me at 603 xxx-xxx or e-mail me back and we can go from there. You can promote yourself and gain more exposure for you and your business, however we ask that you refrain from pitching anything.
I am looking forward to hearing from you shortly! (…) and (…) just couldn’t say enough great things about you! Can’t wait to hear from you!
For whatever reason(s), Olivier gets a little heated and replies to Mari with:
Hi, (…).
I am honored by the kind words and your invitation, but I have to respectfully decline.
I want to be absolutely frank with you as to why I don’t feel comfortable with your request. (I don’t think it would be fair of me to simply decline and not tell you why.) It pains me to say this, but I don’t feel that your organization is currently moving in the right direction or sending the right message across the Social Media space.
As far as I can tell, you have not yet been endorsed by any of the professionals or organizations in this field whose opinion I trust and respect. Not in the US, and certainly not internationally. Providing Social Media training to companies is one thing. Providing a certification program is another. Your “international” organization seems to be based on absolutely nothing of substance, and that worries me a great deal.
With all due respect to Mari, Mark and the rest of your team, I cannot lend my name to your organization – even as a guest presenter – until I feel that you are a legitimate body, at the very least backed by a board of advisors made up of leaders in the field. To do so could be seen as an endorsement of your certification program or status as a governing body of some sort, and I don’t feel comfortable with that at this time.
I am sorry if this letter seems harsh, especially in response to an invitation, but I felt that being honest with you guys was important.
Best regards,
Olivier Blanchard
Obviously Olivier’s response will cause some unsettling feelings in Mari’s stomach. What better way to deal with this disagreement than to hash it out over the phone. According to my research on Twitter, the two spoke over the phone to assess issues and vocalize opinions on Mari’s endeavors. By doing this, Mari chooses option 3 of “What to do when someone questions your expertise in social media”, Try to resolve. I cannot be sure as to what was said in this phone call, but if you over-analyze this Twitter feed, you can see hits of passive-aggressiveness on Olivier’s end.
Olivier is exercising option 2 (Fight Back) of “What to do when someone questions your expertise in social media”. Perhaps Mari one-upped him in their phone call? Perhaps she also flexed option 2 and somehow offended Olivier, which then pushed him to aggressively Tweet?
Time for me to make my point. While I’m sure we all take our jobs and purposes in life very seriously, there does come a point when creating drama becomes unnecessary, especially when its really not that big a deal and you’re just worried that someone else may potentially steal your thunder. Who cares if Mari wants to pass out fake diplomas? Not me and not the companies who are looking to get real results. People can see past bullshit, with or without your blog posts and rants. So, if someone were to question my expertise in social media by bashing me on Twitter or rampaging on WordPress, I would 1. IGNORE, and you should too, because as long as you know and can show proof of your success, you will be a-ok.
I agree with your premise that there are several ways to handle anyone questioning your expertise but thought I’d expound a little further:
1. Ignore – This works as long as the negative comments aren’t made publicly and/or don’t gain traction. If they do, your hand may be forced to engage. Ignoring can only go so far – and if you don’t address things in social media promptly, more damage could be done or the public perception could be you have something to hide.
2. Fight Back – I would change this one, frankly. It isn’t about “fighting back” unless you are looking for a fight or to rachet up someone else’s desire to fight. I’d call this one “Address.” Everyone has a different style for addressing something. Some may be a little more aggressive than others, some may seem snarky about it, but we each handle adversity and confrontation in different ways. Best to address with an even temper and quiet contemplated responses.
3. Try to Resolve. I’d call this one Engage. Resolution may not be the answer. Engagement in a respectful, civil manner may actually not lead to resolution but could learn to a valuable lesson for one or both parties. When someone seems to be picking a fight, the best diffuser is to hear them out and acknowledge. Turn off your defenses and open yourself up to the lessons in front of you. Engaging means interacting in an open way knowing that nobody is really right.
There is always your truth, my truth and then the actual truth. None of us can ever get to the actual truth because we will always be influenced by our own issues, experiences, viewpoints, personalities, etc. We can all exist with our own truths but can’t always expect others to do the same.
And BTW, I beg to differ on the following:
“People can see past bullshit, with or without your blog posts and rants.”
You may have a well-honed BS detector, but trust me – those on the lower end of the learning curve about anything tech can’t sniff out a scam if you whacked them over the head with it. Why do you think so many non-techies and non-industry types fall prey daily to Nigerian prince scams, phishing ploys, etc. Read any local paper in any smaller city or town and you’ll hear about people’s neighbors getting duped by what they see/find/read about on the Internet. I’d like to think those of us who can detect a scam will call it out and help those who don’t know any better to avoid being ripped off. Just neighborly, I think.