Monday 13 April 2009

Social Media Climber

noun.
Someone who assiduously builds himself (it's usually a him) up as a social media expert with copious blog posts, tweets, et cetera that cite what the genuine innovators have done, and adds on a layer of jargon and marketing speak in the hope that clueless brand manager types will hire him as a consultant, and similarly ignorant media will think of him as an expert. (The latter is likely, because media types tend to have take the 're' out of 'research' and hit Google, and the SMC will have ensured high rankings by linking to — and being linked back to reciprocally by — other SMCs.) If either of these things happen at least once, he will then post/tweet/status-message it to all and sundry. Over time, he starts to believe it himself.
The only people more boring than SMCs are SEOs.

5 comments:

sunfever said...

Hmmmm....I almost nodded in wise agreement to this post till I stumbled on the SEO bit. Righteous indignation et al flares up. SEOs??????? the spice of the net? the salt of search????? you have something against SEOsssss?????? uh uh uh .... i guess you disdain the mechanical task of link building or being a rabid SERP climber. Should be natural eh? The world should naturally link to you and let you be the froth that fizzes on top of the search queries eh? Hmmm. I guess the only remedy is to shanghai you 'n make you suffer through the gory glories of SEOdom :)

zigzackly said...

sunfever,
I'm getting intelligent folks like you to read and comment without so much as an ounce of SEO. What more could I ask for?
:)

sunfever said...

Actually I stumbled onto your blog through the Caferati backwash so that's actually Social Media. :)

zigzackly said...

And how does that disprove my case? More so since I have something to do with creating Caferati and its "backwash?" :D

sunfever said...

It makes a case for your intrepid SMC. He can spin out a case study on how social media harnesses the engine of creativity to empower engagement at the fundamental level of interest intersecting at the point of relevance to engender a hyper responsive exchange of values that simultaneously enrich and embed the corporate brand at the primeval emotional level of triggered automatic responses which ultimately will turn the engagee into a buy happy customer who will hock his soul to Citibank to get in on the joy ride offered by the company. This is way more than staid olde search can ever accomplish! :)