I’m pretty confident that there is a wide range of social media sophistication of the Web Strategy Blog readers.
I get questions that are very novice, but those that are very advanced tell me they’re still learning something once in a while. The same is true on my interactions with clients, there’s a small group of the very sophisticated, but most are trying to answer the ‘how do we do it’. Very few are in the ‘what is it stage’ when it comes to social media.
David Churbuck from Lenovo is in the sophisticated camp and moans that I’m writing posts for the novice community “let’s step up the analysis and look at the hard questions, not the thumbsuckers”. He’s right ya know, but here’s an explanation:
Some of my posts are aimed at the novices but it’s because I refer people to these starter posts to save me time. The Social Media FAQ series and the 3 Impossible conversations (the one David complains about) is for that.
If you’re in the medium stage, and are convinced that you understand social media but need to jump forward quickly, read these posts.
Now if you’re on the more sophisticated side, you may benefit on all my posts tagged Web Strategy. If you want to dive in to measurement you’ll need to sift through my posts tagged Social Media Measurement.
I’m grateful for feedback from folks like David (check out his Bio, he’s very seasoned) and I even offered him the opportunity go guest post on this blog to set the bar higher. But if you’re still hungry for advanced content that solves all your business problems, you won’t find those here. While I share a great deal of information on this blog (I work really hard to try to earn your trust and respect) but I reserve 100% of my resource for my clients.
I know I’m never going to please everyone, but lemme tell ya, I walk a real fine line of trying to connect with the community, being mindful to my paying clients, and doing my day job. There really isn’t a lot of folks that have done this to this level, so bear with me while I walk on new ground.
Thumbsuckers. Huh? Whatever.
I’ve been thinking about and practising social media since the days of Eudora. And I still learn something new every day — often from your posts.
I also pass your posts along to others, because often the people holding the purse strings have less experience than the people with the know-how and it takes convincing from a number of sources to make a thing happen. So please continue to offer an array of information and I will read everything you write, every day.
I also have responded over yonder.
You are doing a great job walking the fine line. It can be a shock to take that kind of criticism, but you will see from people’s reactions that you are playing a key role in the industry – globally.
Back to my comment on your post the ‘3 Impossible Conversations’, it is ‘hard’ to accept input of any type at a personal or corporate level. Even praise can be a tricky one.
A couple of wise proverbs:
‘Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.’
‘The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives.’
As you say, press forward.
Jeremiah you do walk a fine line but community is your brand and when you build trust amongst your audience it goes a long way. You are using the same elements of social media marketing to provide an educational and often validating look at the industry while still reserving enough of you’re expertise for the clients.
As far as novices I thank you for talking about the basics to more people because it will only help the industry grow and more people will understand what I doo when I tell them my title is Social Media Coordinator. I get a lot of friends I run into that look really puzzled at that term.
Thanks keep up the good work.
Thumbsuckers. Huh? Whatever.
I've been thinking about and practising social media since the days of Eudora. And I still learn something new every day — often from your posts.
I also pass your posts along to others, because often the people holding the purse strings have less experience than the people with the know-how and it takes convincing from a number of sources to make a thing happen. So please continue to offer an array of information and I will read everything you write, every day.