Booshaka CEO Erik Ober on How You Can Identify your Top Fans on Facebook

I first spoke with Erik Ober, CEO of Booshaka, in 2010 because his startup, which started as a search engine for Facebook, had caught my interest. I expressed that while it was great to find out about what people were publicly saying about brands on Facebook, it would be great to also know specifics about the engagement brands' Facebook pages. I really wanted to discover who the most engaged fans on a Facebook page were.

Today, Booshaka ranks Facebook pages based on engagement and, as I had hoped and recommended, Booshaka identifies your "top fans" and ranks them in a nice leaderboard. In this interview, Erik shares about his startup, how their "Top Fans" service works, and where his team is headed.

"We find the most engaged communities are the ones where the advocates have been empowered and motivated to participate. ."

Social Nerdia: Who is behind Booshaka and what does your “Do the Impossible” tagline mean?

EO: Booshaka is backed by a proven leadership and advisory team with 100+ collective years in social applications, data analysis, algorithms and advertising. Our mission is to help brands and businesses drive engagement and advocacy on Facebook.

From the start, we wanted to create big, meaningful company.  "Do the impossible" is more of a motto than a tagline and its derived from the Urban dictionary meaning of "Booshaka." Since naming the company, we've been told that all the biggest internet domains have two "O"s in them -- Facebook, Google, and Yahoo :)

Social Nerdia: While the site initially started as a way to search on Facebook pages, it is now focused on Facebook Leaderboards based on engagement. Tell me more about this evolution.

EO: The first few iterations of the product were experimental and designed to test how the market would respond to innovations built on Facebook's Graph APIs.  In August 2010, we launched a version of the site which showed what was trending in different topical categories (ie Sports, Movies, Politics, etc) on Facebook.  We received some great organic press for the app and hundreds of developers and companies reached out to see how they might be able to leverage our technology.

After several months of customer development, we learned two things:

a. Marketers were overwhelmed with the amount of social data and interactions on Facebook and didn't know how to take advantage of it.

b. Everyone was measuring the success of their Facebook Page(s) in terms of total number of fans / likes.

From our perspective, social media is all about how active your community is, how engaged your customers are, and how much they talk about your brand or business. At that point, we set out to develop technology solutions for the next frontier of social marketing -- customer engagement and advocacy.

Social Nerdia: What kind of Facebook pages would benefit from adding a “Top Fans” application?

EO: Most business owners are familiar with the 80/20 rule in which 20% of their customers actually make up 80% of their business.  Given this simple mantra, we believe the "Top Fans" application is instantly useful to any Facebook Page. Facebook Page admins can use the leaderboard to recognize and reward their top contributors and drive business metrics. On average, we've seen that effective use of the application will triple engagement in your community.

Social Nerdia: Your Leaderboards are based on a point system. What does someone need to do in order to become a “Top Fan” on a Facebook page?

EO: We've invested a lot of effort into ensuring that the point algorithm rewards the quality of your participation. Posts, comments and likes are all initially worth 1 point.  Your score is then weighted by higher quality activity (on topic and engages with the community) and will earn you extra points. Lower quality activity (off topic and spammy) will actually earn you less points. Consistent activity over time is more valuable than repeatedly performing the same action, such as clicking the Like button on every post.

Social Nerdia: Is this all in real-time or does it get aggregated at the end of the day/week/month?

EO: Points and rankings are calculated daily and are aggregated for the current month. Soon, we will release a Rules Engine which will allow page admins to customize the leaderboard date range.

Social Nerdia: Does Booshaka provide custom development services?

EO: Yes.  Currently, we are busy working directly with partners and customers to build out the platform to suit their needs.

Social Nerdia: Any chance we will see a Booshaka for Twitter in the future?

EO: Possibly :)

Social Nerdia: Do you think Facebook is increasingly becoming a public forum as opposed to a private place for conversations with friends?

EO: Facebook strives to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.  We think they are succeeding at that mission while simultaneously giving people the privacy controls they need.

Social Nerdia: Any advice for marketers trying to increase engagement on Facebook?

EO: Our analysis on Facebook not only goes deep but it also goes broad across the whole network.  With an index of over 2 million Facebook Pages, we've gathered a lot of insights into how marketers can successfully drive engagement. We find the most engaged communities are the ones where the advocates have been empowered and motivated to participate. So, build your team of "superfans".  All of your social customers have the potential to influence their friends, but in fact very few of them do. Once you've identified the fans who are the most engaged and strongest potential advocates, use game mechanics such as recognition and reward to nurture and grow their involvement.

At Booshaka, we've created new metrics for buzz and community health.  Social data provides marketers the opportunity to measure their success and understand their customers like never before.  Make sure you're investing your budget and efforts in the right places and that your social strategy is delivering real value.

Find your Top Fans here, browse the most engaged Pages on Facebook here, and feel free to reach us via email: info@booshaka.com.

100 Groupon Clone Videos From Around the World

I've recently been advising the social media marketing efforts of Cucupons, a Guatemalan daily deals site that launched today. When I first met with the team I asked them if they had considered creating a video, such as the "How it Works" video by Groupon.

I quickly discovered that Groupon has inspired not only tons of daily group deal companies, but also lots of marketing videos in all kinds of languages from all over the world.

Alas, Cucupons launched without a video of its own, focusing on more cost-effective and differentiating tactics based on how Guatemalans actually shop offline and online.

You can find 100 Groupon "clone" videos that I've curated at www.curated.by/socialnerdia/groupon-clones.

MARCH 2012 UPDATE: Curated.by decided to disappear from the face of the Earth and they did not even have the courtesy to tell their users. 

Spotify, Pandora, Grooveshark, Napster, and Why Streaming Music is about Freedom

When I was in High School, Napster was the coolest "computer application" on Earth. Sharing and downloading music, for free, had changed the world. From pillow fights with Metallica to the rise and fall of copycats like Limewire, Napster disrupted the web, the music industry, and the tech industry. Today, the Napster logo still represents music, but it doesn't represent what it used to represent back then: Freedom.

Fast forward to today.

Spotify, the mythological creature of music streaming, is allegedly coming to the U.S. tomorrow, and rumor is it will be integrated into Facebook soon after.

Pandora, a public company (let me repeat: a public company) birthed out of the "Music Genome Project," just recently redesigned its site to allow you to go "back" on your browser and provide a deeper social experience inspired by good ol' photo social network Instagram, among other changes.

(And in related news, I haven't bought a CD in three years. If I've paid for any songs online, it can't be more than a dozen or two.)

So what does this mean? Spotify coming to the U.S. after what seemed like decades of waiting and Pandora going public and adding a social layer of its own are clear signs that the days of music ownership, at least in the traditional way, are numbered. Music streaming means you can't download, but it also means you no longer have to.

Of course, many are skeptic.

Some say that only the giants (Google Music, Amazon Music, iTunes) have a seat at the exclusive musical table in the cloud and that streaming music will be costly, squashing the little guys in the process. Others complain about functionality and details and privacy and control and lack of subway access. And while geeks discuss the cloud, the masses show that AM/FM/?M is just fine and that $2 downloads is more than fine in 2011.

But all I can think of is this: Freedom.

I don't really care about showing off CDs and LPs in my living room, and I don't really want to "own" music that's just taking space in my hard drive. I don't ever care about high quality that much.

Music is to be listened to, not to waste physical and digital space! What I care about is freedom to listen to what I want, whenever and wherever I want at the lowest possible cost. And the best solution to this is streaming online music.

If Spotify gives me 20 hours, I'll take those, thank you very much. Pandora offers a few more hours and throws some social recommendations? Sounds great. I will take those too. Last.fm and Turntable.fm want to offer me a few more songs for free? Sure, why not. And for the rest of the time (or maybe most of the time), I will keep using my beloved Grooveshark, which I use almost every day even though it has "social" features that I could not care less about.

If the past couple of years are an indication of the future of online music streaming, then we can be sure that there will be more options; differentiated and free options. And with multiple options I can assure you that I, like many others, will switch from Napster to Limewire to Last.fm to Pandora to Google Music to Grooveshark to whatever service offers me this: Freedom.

10 Things Google+ Can Do To Wow Itself and the World

Google+ is off to a good start: A clean interface that works, interesting and useful  features, a great Android app, and a curious community of early adopters. The screenshots at the bottom of this post will give you a taste of what Google+ is but they will also likely show you what it is not, at least not yet.

Google needs to go above and beyond itself to make this worth our time and theirs. Right now Google+ (or Google Plus) feels like Google Buzz +1 but also like Facebook -1. It's exciting, but not that exciting.

Below are 10 things that Google can do to change their reputation in the "social" space and become a dominant player instead of an awkward one.

1) Don't Focus on the Technology

Google Wave was the future... and then it died. Google Buzz might as well be. Google must truly learn from those mistakes and focus on use cases that make sense to people outside the Googleplex. Why do people go online (beyond search and YouTube) and why/how/when do people interact with each other?

2) Compete with Facebook

Google needs to stop saying that this is not about Facebook. It is. It's time to compete and compete well. Twitter might not be trying to create a Facebook but its definitely competing by enhancing its own network and doing things that are either very much in line with what Facebook is doing, or completely different. A competition is a competition regardless of whether you can coexist or not.

3) Google Ads

A Google social network without ads? Really? For how long? Google must be brave and put some ads up there. If it doesn't, I simply cannot take this seriously. It's not that I love ads, but without ads Google is pretending to be something it is not.

4) Make Changes and Soon

Google Buzz looks the same today as it did a year ago. That's embarrasing and quite useless in a web that evolves on an on-going basis. There must be a long-term strategy and that must involve changes, updates, and major enhancements and announcements. It also includes making mistakes and doing a thing or two that people don't like. Just do something beyond launching and don't wait too long to do it. If there are no changes in the next month or two, I'm not staying around.

5) Integrate ASAP

 Google called it "Plus" because its supposed to "enhance Google," right? Well, then, I hope the name is not a letdown. I want to see the best analytics on a social network ever and this may already be happening. But I also want to see Google Docs and the best of Wave (RIP) and Buzz and Latitude/Places/Loopt integrated either physically or in spirit with Plus.

6) Show What Android Can Do

The Google+ Android app should make people want to buy an Android phone just to see what an Android app can really do. If Android is the future of how people will be able to interact, use that app to make it evident.

7) More Useful Applications: Threads, Curation, Live Streaming?

Circles, Hangouts, Sparks. We need more of that. Google can give us some of the things Facebook offers (Chat, Groups, Questions) as well as things that Facebook hasn't done (or hasn't done well yet). From threaded messages to collaboration, live streaming, and curation (ie. Storify, Curated.by), there are many ways to provide solutions to the many issues of today's social media sites.

8) Don't forget about Brands

Brands are now used to having a Facebook Page and a Twitter account. What is Google's alternative? There better be one and it better be worthwhile. People gather around the things they care about and brands/products/services are definitely part of that. There should be a special place for brands in Google+ and it should allow them to add value and engage in a way that makes Facebook and Twitter nervous.

9) Focus on the Masses, not the Early Adopters

The same people on Google+ today were on Google Buzz for 3 weeks. Influencers, bloggers, and reporters do not matter that much in this battle so be careful not to pay too much attention to them. Instead, focus on giving the mainstream audiences something they want to use. This will not be easy because the average Facebook user has little desire to try something like Google+ at this point. If Google can start to get the attention of my wife and my mom, it might just have a chance. Until then, it's only a niche product for early adopters to talk about nothing but Google+ itself.

10) Play Well With Others

While Google definitely does not want to become an aggregator (Google Buzz is now known as dead sea of tweets no one reads), it better be strategic about who it can partner and get creative with. From opening up to third party developers, to partnering with software, hardware, and content providers, Google might not be able to pull this off on its own.

Conclusion

I guess to sum it up: Google needs to discover itself, be itself, and leverage itself. People say "social" is not in their DNA so this might be the last opportunity for Google to find out whether that is true or not.

Differentiation won't be a way to position Google+, it will be the only way for it to survive and thrive. Google can't be Facebook and it can't be Twitter, but there's no need to say "oh, we're just here for a good time." People don't have time for a swell time. People have time for things that make their life better, not just their Google better.

There are many of us who want Google to succeed in this space (even if that's a bit scary in a way) because we know the kind of value that Google has provided with search, email, video, etc.

It's time to wow the average Facebook user while wowing the average Facebook engineer.

It's time for Google to wow itself.

Screenshots of Google+ on Social Nerdia's Flickr

Simon Mainwaring talks We First & the Future of Capitalism Through the Lens of Social Tech

Simon Mainwaring is founder of We First, a social branding consulting firm that helps companies use social media to build communities, profits and positive social impact. Simon is also the author of the book by the same name. In this interview, Simon talks about his book, social technologies, and the future of capitalism.

"Perhaps the most powerful impact of social media is its ability to connect people around what they care about."

Social Nerdia: What led you to write We First?

Simon Mainwaring: I wrote “We First” for both personal and professional reasons. I was fortunate enough to have a long advertising career but still felt unfulfilled. I didn’t feel like there was an alignment between who I am as a person and what I did on a daily basis. With that in mind, I read the transcript for Bill Gates’ Creative Capitalism speech he gave at the World Economic Forum in which he said that government and philanthropy can’t fix the world on their own, they need the private sector to get involved. I saw this as an opportunity for me to find more fulfillment by becoming more purposefully engaged and also to use my skill sets to make a contribution. That was the genesis of writing the book.

Social Nerdia: What makes this book unique and why do people need to read it?

SM: The book is unique for a couple of reasons. It does an effective job of consolidating a lot of different discussions going on right now, whether they’re about the future of capitalism, philosophical debates about self-interest, globalization, emerging technologies, the future of the developing world, and the impact of social technology. Specifically, the book is unique because it looks at an issue that many people have discussed: the future of capitalism through the lens of social technology.

Mass adoption of social media has only occurred in the last three or four years, so what makes the book unique is that it looks at these questions through the lens of this new technology and provides three fundamental new solutions. First is a new partnership between brands and consumers connected by social technology and aligned around shared values that creates a third pillar of social change in addition to government and philanthropy. The second is the concept of contributory consumption, which builds on precursors like "1% for the Planet" but extends to include not only retail, credit card, online, and mobile transactions, but also virtual goods when applying the concept of contributing a small portion of the sale of every good or service to a cause. Thirdly, the book proposes the formation of the Global Brand Initiative, which is a federation of brands that would combine their efforts and expertise to bring the best of the private sector into the social change space. So the book is unique because it lays out these three concepts.

Social Nerdia: It seems like people tend to come together in the midst of trials. What does that mean in a socially connected world?

MW: Perhaps the most powerful impact of social media is its ability to connect people around what they care about. In times of trials, there are many pressing issues that motivate people to hope and work for change. In the last few years this has included everything from addressing persistent crises like hunger, disease and child mortality, through to unforeseen emergencies like the earthquake in Haiti, through to challenges the developing world faces such as the persistent recession after the global economic meltdown. Whatever the issue, social media allows people to connect around these shared concerns and to take action together, which is the most effective way to scale our response to these crises.

 

Social Nerdia: What do you think about companies generating awareness for causes they support by adding a dollar value donation to social media actions?

MW: This is a critical, new dynamic that needs to be embraced by the private sector if we are going to meet the challenges we face with equal force. Now, realistically, you’ll never get the entire private sector to commit, but if we only see a five-to-ten percent shift in engagement by large corporations, and if they only donate a fraction on the dollar towards causes that are in alignment with their core values, we can systemically scale the contributions that are raised towards addressing pressing social issues. As such, the private sector and its untapped potential represent an enormous opportunity to create a third pillar of change in addition to government and philanthropy.

Social Nerdia: What are some of the main things that brands can do today to enhance the overall customer experience using social media?

SM: Oddly enough, the most unnecessary mistake a brand can make is to see social media as an end in itself. This technology is just another platform that allows people to connect emotionally. By doing so, brands can build loyal customers that generate word-of-mouth advertising that ultimately impacts their bottom line. With that in mind, the most effective thing a brand can do is define what it stands for, articulate its core values and act on the basis of those values and then communicate such efforts consistently.

Social Nerdia: Some technologies are truly disruptive. What are some of the emerging trends we see today that you think will disrupt markets and our thinking?

SM: I believe that in the space of a few short years, we’ll find it hard to imagine a time when customers didn’t have multiple platforms and channels through which to talk about brands with their friends and community. It will seem almost absurd to people that citizens and consumers were largely told what to think, do or buy using print, television or radio alone, and there was really no channel for them to have a dialogue with those institutions. So I think this is perhaps the most important, disruptive element in social media in that it has shifted the dynamic between institutions, whether it’s the government or corporation, from a broadcast/ monologue approach to a dialogue between customers and brands, or citizens and institutions. This has enormous implications for leadership, organizational structure, customer service and, obviously, advertising. As such, social media will transform the business marketplace as radically as the digital revolution did in the early ‘90’s.

Social Nerdia: Live streaming video has been around for some time but it's still not widely used. Do you think we'll eventually find ourselves in a world where everybody streams their life in real-time?

SM: I don’t see the live-streaming of our lives as the most obvious or natural consequence of the new connections between people brought about through social media. My sense of it is that social media facilitates the building of communities around what people care about, so it’s a shared or ‘we’ experience, rather than simply being another tool to demonstrate a ‘me’ mentality, which is obviously what informs live-streaming your life to others at all times. In a sense, what people are looking for is human connection, meaning and hope for the future rather than simply a media outlet through which to promote themselves to others. Naturally, there will be exceptions to that rule, but by and large, my sense is that live-streaming video will just be another way of distributing content that has to be meaningful and impactful to people for people to watch it.

Social Nerdia: Anything that goes up online eventually comes to light. If somebody were to look at a feed of content about your life 50 years from now, what kind of story do you hope the feed will tell?

SM: My hope would be that the story shows an alignment between who I am as a person and what I did in my daily life and career, and that my efforts would combine with others to help shift the conversation in the private sector towards more consistent, purposeful engagement that improves the lives of others.

Social Nerdia: What's the process of writing a book like? Any advice for first-time authors?

SM: Writing a book was something I had no understanding of when I went into it, and only on the other side of it did I realize how little I knew. Someone said to me recently that writing a book is not about the finished book in your hand, but what you learn about yourself along the way.  I can tell you now that is absolutely true. It tests your finances, it tests your energy, it tests your intellect, and, like any large commitment, it forces you to grow. If I was to give any advice to a first time author, it would be that, like any brand, we need to recognize that we must now all be community architects. Even if you’re writing a book, you need to consider all the different channels that you can use to build a community that will eventually be the marketplace for your book. This involves blogging, tweeting, using Facebook, creating content on YouTube, and basically bringing to life the intellectual property of your book through different channels in a way that will stimulate people’s interest, engage their feedback, and create a sizeable marketplace for the launch of your book.

Facebook version of AdSense Coming to a Site Near You?

According to recent eMarketer research, Facebook is the number one seller of display ads in the US. eMarketer expects Facebook to generate $2.19 billion in display advertising revenue this year.

How much is expected for Yahoo? $1.62 billion.

And what about Google? Only $1.15 billion.

We all know that if we want to place text ads on a website or blog, AdSense is the first place to go for revenue. AdSense is great because it delivers ads based on the website hosting the ad. But AdSense doesn't seem to really know much, if at all, about the audience viewing the ads.

So what about display ads? And what about targeted, relevant display ads?

Everyone talks about targeted and relevant advertising, but no one has been able to deliver this in the way that Facebook can within Facebook.com.

It must be only a matter of time before Facebook decides to add advertisements to the Open Graph.

We already see "Like" buttons everywhere and companies like Amazon, CNN, Levi's and Huffington Post have done some interesting personalization-like implementations on their sites.

Anyone can add a Facebook plugin in a matter of minutes.

So why not Facebook ads all over the web? Why not a FacebookSense of sorts that would allow both large and small sites to deliver targeted and relevant ads to Facebook users?

Think about. You're connected to Facebook and happen to stroll away from Facebook for 5 minutes and end up on a sports blog. And let's say you're a young woman who recently got engaged. Facebook knows you're engaged and you're a young woman who likes to run so maybe it would show you a wedding dress ad and a Nike Women Sponsored Story. It might not be perfect because Facebook wouldn't know whether you've bought that wedding dress yet but it would be a better experience than seeing an ad about muscle gain next to an ad for a questionable dating site, right?

And what about visitors who are not on Facebook or don't feel like connecting to Facebook at that time? Well, Facebook could deliver ads based on the content of the site itself just as Google AdSense does.

My guess is that a Facebook AdSense coming and it's coming before 2012. Why before 2012? Well, because 2012 is the alleged IPO year. Oh, and also because 2012 might be the end of the world. And Facebook doesn't have time to wait until the end of the world.

Never Plan on Hiring a Social Media Expert? Good Luck With That

It's funny to see some of the same people who have praised Web 2.0 and social media for years and highly depend on social media themselves, pointing the finger at "social media experts." These myopic blog posts get views and buzz, but they are so generic that it shows that they don't really see the entire picture or are simply seeking attention by trying to stand out amidst a sea of social media related content and opinions.

Are these kinds of articles/posts new? Nope. Criticism of "gurus," "ninjas," "experts," "snake oil salesmen," etc. abound online. Everyone and their cousin has written about it (I'm sure I've done it myself and I apologize on behalf of my younger, ignorant self).

Ironically, many of the people  making these claims are the same ones that speak at conferences, write books, and appear on TV and magazine articles to talk about how much they know about social media. They speak as experts and then talk about a generic group of renegade "social media experts."

Based on my experience, I know how some small business owners see social media and how very large corporations see social media. I also have interacted with PR/marketing/advertising agencies, technology vendors, and startups/developers to have enough of an idea of how they see it.

And from what I've experienced, regardless of what you read in blog post x, most large companies need people who specialize in social media in various areas of the organization. In the same way, most small businesses need help with getting started in social media.

Sure, it would be fantastic if everyone from the CEO to customer service reps, marketing departments, and the agencies helping them were not only aware of how the space is evolving on a monthly basis, but also had experience and deep knowledge about what works, what doesn't, and what it all means for the organization.

In an ideal world, everyone would have experience and knowledge around social strategy, integration, execution, management, testing, and measurement, and everyone would know how to spend dollars correctly to make things happen efficiently, creatively and with relevance, but that is not the case. The fact is that most large companies are still learning and some are still skeptic, despite the strong data suggesting that people are spending a lot of their time and attention on social sites. It takes resources and money to provide great customer service and create great marketing. In the same way, most small businesses probably don't even have the time to do much more beyond creating a Facebook page and putting a Facebook icon on a billboard.

Pointing a finger at "social media experts" is like pointing a finger at "media planning experts." It's terribly vague.

Another case against the "social media experts" is the large amount of scammers and spammers out there. True, there are a lot of people trying to sell you everything from "ROI" to revolutionary sentiment analysis to $99 Facebook pages and Twitter followers by the gazillions.

Every single day of the year I get either a call, a LinkedIn message or an email from someone trying to reach the social media strategist/manager/expert/owner/director/leader at the company I work for. Every single day.

Are we in a bubble? Nevermind, wrong topic.

So every single day I get these kinds of messages and I try to take some of them because there are some pretty interesting and valuable tools, vendors, agencies and startups out there. The interesting thing is that all of these salespeople want to talk to some kind of social media specialist. Regardless of how good these vendors are, they are all looking for who? Social media experts.

And you know what? The good companies will try to talk to a social media specialist. The bad ones will probably try to reach anyone in marketing communications, corporate communications, media planning, research, or who knows, maybe even HR, legal, and accounting to try to sell what the anti-expert experts call "snake oil." It might be easier to sell "snake oil" (either through a phone call or a blog post) to someone who doesn't really understand what works in social media.

Without experts/specialists, it's easy for companies to fall for fluffy, borderline useless, and/or expensive services and products.

And without people who know how to get things done in social media, it is easy to miss on great opportunities and completely dismiss great threats.

I wish we could, but we can't just become all-knowing over night.

Someone can't just wake up one day and do marketing and customer service in social media simply by "knowing the consumer" and saying "transparency," "brevity" and "relevance" out loud to magically "generate revenue." Sorry but ummm no. You don't magically wake up one day just knowing everything there is to know about any topic or profession. And you don't magically learn about new technologies and opportunities simply by knowing the basics of business. And on a sidenote, marketing is not just about revenue. Social media is most definitely not just about revenue.

Another issue I have with the anti-expert statement is the despise for younger professionals. It's easy to poke fun at interns but sometimes they might have more passion, interest and skill in social media than people that have been in marketing for a long time.

Everyone learns at some point and that's why companies need to seek people who are most knowledgeable and experienced (not just most popular or "influential").

In a way, many of us who work within social media have been snake oil consumers, and even "salespeople" if you want to think about it that way. A lot of the "influencers" in social media were once ignorant Kool-aid drinkers too. At some point Gary Vee was just a guy trying to upload a video online. At some point Robert Scoble got excited over a web log. At some point Frank Eliason was just someone in a customer service department who liked a site called Twitter. At some point everyone was on Google Buzz. At some point Empire Avenue was going to take over the world.

I'm not really sure if this is making sense as I'm just typing thoughts at this point but I must say I simply find it very dishonest and self-righteous to one day brag about the powers of something, and the next day shun others doing it or specializing in it. It is one thing to say to a colleague "watch out for x, y and z because it is not true and a, b, and c will save you some trouble." It's a completely different matter to point a finger saying "social media experts are idiots and I'm not."

I think it's time to end the whole "snake oil salesmen" and "social media guru" finger-pointing conversation.

We get it anti-expert experts. You think you're awesome and everyone else isn't, and you want us to retweet it because you're so influential and strategic and revenue-oriented.

At this point, blog posts about "snake oil salesmen" are becoming "snake oil" themselves.