Posted on June 23, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

10 reasons why people hate self-proclaimed social media gurus.

Last week, Lisa Braziel posted about how self-proclaimed social media gurus on Twitter are now at 5,855.

I retweeted her and added, where were they in 2006-2007 just for fun. Her tweet was about the post from What’s Next Blog called Updated List of Social Media Gurus on Twitter: a Public Service for CMOs. The term social media has been over used a lot and if you dare add the words expert or guru to a your bio or resume you’re almost putting a dart on your head saying let’s have a flame ware. But why? Here are 10 reasons why I think people hate self-proclaimed social media gurus.

1. You used to be the only self-proclaimed social media guru who knew what social media was in your community.
2. Other self-proclaimed gurus are making money off of social media and you’re not.
3. Self-proclaimed social media gurus remind you of used car sales men. (no harm intended) but you know what I mean.
4. Self-proclaimed gurus have no track record.
5. Self-proclaimed social media gurus think social media is just twitter, youtube and facebook.
6. Self-proclaimed social media gurus just started in late 2008.
7. Self-proclaimed social media gurus just started blogging.
8. Self-proclaimed social media gurus are hired as social media directors of major companies before you are.
9. Self-proclaimed social media gurus spam twitter and Linkedin with questions and call it engagement.
10. Self-proclaimed social media gurus have auto reply twitter DM messages saying sign up for my ebook or newsletter.

Update:
Bonus: Self-proclaimed social media gurus read your blog, tweets and facebook messages and repost it like they thought of it first with no credit to the source.

Also read: NOBODY SHOULD WANT TO BE A SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT and 7 Ways to Avoid Being a Social Media Clone

Note: I have never called myself a guru or expert and I really don’t think anyone with the exception of a handful of individuals can called themselves experts. So if you’re writing a press release or a newsletter please think twice before you add the words expert or guru behind the term social media to any name.

PS. No tweets were harmed while writing this blog post.

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