The rise of social media has proven an amazing opportunity for marketers who have leveraged new technology to build their personal and professional network. There are some who have grown to social media fame through their ability to leverage this new technology - iJustine at Tastyblogsnack.com is a great example. Using the network effects of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Video blogging, and well just about every other web 2.0 site that has launched, Justine Ezarik has become somewhat of a new media celebrity. Her iPhone bill video made the frontpage of Yahoo! and landed her an interview on CNN. Justine, like many in the field have built a strong personal network to help them launch their ideas and work into the social web.

While the principles behind Justine’s work are sound, they do not equal business success. Being personally successful on social media is not the same as building social media campaigns for business. Unfortunately, the scams have begun. Individuals who may or may not have experience with social media marketing are positioning themselves as experts with their “systems” but no idea of how to combine the benefits of building personal and professional networks online with social media can translate to legitimate business success.

How do clear through the clutter to find someone who can legitimately help your business? First, start by looking at their web presence. Do they offer professional experience, or personal “expertise?” Who are their reference accounts (are they businesses or other personal experts?) Can they describe for you the difference between a personal campaign and a professional one, and where the power of one is over the other?

Mashable.com, one of the leading voices in social media is recognizing the trend as well. Mark Hopkins writes in his recent post, “All too often, I see folks promoting social media consultancy as if it were Web 1.0 “Get Your Awesome Traffic Now!” style marketing.” Mark has a good point, and while it’s easy to point out the SEO benefits it should be understood that the real value lies in building real networks. This is illustrated by the recent $1B valuation of Linkedin.com. There are definitely people out there with legitimate social media marketing experience who can help you online, but beware, the social media scams have begun.

Tags: Social Media Marketing, social-marketing, social-media

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 6:01 am and is filed under Social Media Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.