Image by Wisconsin Historical Society via FlickrThe Buzz Bin from Livingston Communications posted a must read article on the 25 Signs you have a strong Social Media consultant or agency. Many of the points are true, but there is also the corollary here, they might sound great, but how much of the presentation is going to be snake oil, and how well will management be able to work out what is snake oil and what is not.

In light of the Buzz Bin, here are some things to watch for in a Social Media Snake Oil presentation.

1. Watch out for fantastic claims. Fantastic claims are those that promise immediate results in 90 days or less. Promise the top of the food chain in social media with hundreds if not thousands of followers, all discussing your product or service. Everyone is going to want results, but social media requires patience, it is a long process of building street credibility, there is no overnight success in this business.

2. Watch out for meaningless buzzwords. Buzzwords are ok, but when the speaker cannot clearly define what they mean by the use of those buzzwords, it is time to flee the building. If they do not know what the role of twitter, friend feed, blogs, social median, and other systems have in the ecology that is social media, they are simply mouthing something they heard without understanding the meaning.

3. Watch out for anyone that says this is easy. None of this is easy; it is not like going to the store and saying I would like 200 followers on Friend Feed and 5000 followers on Twitter. Anyone who makes it sound like it is easy, or that it will be really simple to do, run away screaming.

4. Watch out for anyone who says “just be organic” (I actually heard that this week). What they meant was do not worry about what other people are saying or doing, just go along for the ride. If you are serious about corporate social media, you can’t just be “organic”. You have to have a plan, a policy, procedures, what to do, when to do it, and why to do it. It is safer for you as a company, and safer for the people inside the company who are blogging, tweeting, or otherwise getting the word out. Organic is great for food, but makes a poor engagement and support policy.

5. Watch out for people who do not know who the thought leaders are for your industry. If they do not know who Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington, Louis Gray, and Mike Fruchter are and they are proposing that your technology company starts going social networking, you do not need them. Each industry has their own thought leaders, their own cliques, groups, friends and friends of friends, the key is to know the key people in the industry segment, and see what they have done. Emulation is a form of flattery, but if you don’t know who is who, emulation gets to be difficult very quickly.

6. Watch out for people who have generic case studies. I have seen this one far too many times in the last few months. People talking about case studies, but not understanding the dynamics behind them. Dell didn’t just throw together their social networking system, they thought it out, they figured out who was doing what, and took what worked for them. Anyone who says “well Dell does it”, but does not understand how Dell did it probably cannot help you very much in the social networking space.

7. Watch out for people who treat social media like Marketing or Public Relations. While they share similar goals, and quite often the same budget, social networking is based on authenticity and original voice. Marketing and PR are based on controlled messaging. Social networks are looser, and require real people, not a controlled and tightly worded message. People see though PR based social media quickly, and will often reject the message.

8. People who will not give away the secrets unless you pay them. There are no secrets to social media, it is still being formed, there are things that work, and there are things that do not work. They are also industry specific in what does and does not work. Snake oil starts when they tell you there is a secret, there isn’t, what works and what does not work is all over the internet for free. Use Google, learn lots, and do cool stuff. There is a reason to engage with a social media company, or social media experts, but if they want money to tell you secrets, rather than telling you what is common amongst industries up front, well maybe they don’t really know what is happening. The value to an expert is that they will help you build a tailored campaign by showing you what has worked in the past, and how they plan on addressing your company to the internet. Anything less than that, well it is not a good presentation and you can ignore them freely.

These are some of the snake oil type things that I have seen in the last 90 days with some of the work I have been doing. There are many ways of approaching social media, no one answer works for every company. People who tell you otherwise, should be left alone.

It is hard to tell the good from the bad, with an industry in the early stages like this, there aer going to be people who jump on the bandwagon and say they know how to do all this stuff. The harder part is verifying the facts of the sales people before you, do they really know what they are talking about. Did the company do the homework they need to do to make sure they make the right decision when it comes down to picking the right company to help them with social media? It is important to find the right expert to make sure you have all your social media bases covered, both internally and externally.

Tags: social media, snake oil, experts, wrong, idea