Second, I guess the main point of this post, was that I don’t think the learning curve involved with social media is all that steep. There could be 3 potential reasons for this:

1) It comes easier to me, or really anyone around my age, since I just so happened to be freshman in college the year Facebook came to be. I remember when wall posts, messages, and “pokes” were the sole capabilities of the site. Wasting time on social media was seen as problematic in college, now it’s my profession. Social media being a valuable business tool is akin to someone telling me, “you can be really rich if you’re good at Nintendo”, when I was 8.

2) Perhaps I’m not using social media to it’s fullest extent. Maybe what I’ve been exposed to is only the tip of the iceberg. I choose to not believe this considering all the time I’ve spent listening to other “experts” talk about tactics which seem very elementary, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

3) It is easy.

The examples you give, including, “I can whittle my own dog toys, but..”, I would pay a dog whittler good money because, well quite frankly my guess is it takes several years of training to master the fine art of dog toy whittling. To my knowledge, social media is a relatively new invention. Even the most experienced social media’ers have only been using it for less than a decade. Self-proclaimed “social media experts” are often people who’ve gone to a conference, read a couple blogs, and opened a couple Twitter accounts. When they explain advanced tactics such as “re-tweets” and “twitter lists” to their clients, and it goes over their heads, they reaffirm to themselves their “expert” mentality.

I think the most important aspect of effective social media marketing isn’t the social media aspect, but the marketing part. My declaration that “no business should ever pay anyone to manage their social media accounts”, is more of a warning not to shell out big bucks to one of these social media experts than anything else. Do I think there are smart people who also know how to leverage the intricacies of social media? Of course. And any business would be lucky to have them. But unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I think those types are few and far between. As a protection to wasting money on such an individual, I think they could learn the basics on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc., for themselves, and be better off for it.

But, you do bring up good points, I should have done a better job explaining myself.

Thanks for the comment. Check out Justin’s site!

http://www.justinkownacki.com/

Thanks for the insight Zach

But.

Although most companies would benefit in some way from managing their social media in-house, there are also downsides. The learning curve is one. The lack of external experience is another. The inability to include perspectives from beyond the corporate umbrella is a third.

Plus, there’s the difference between using a tool because you can vs. using a tool as well as possible. I can frame my own photos, but a professional framer would do it better. I can (learn to) change my own oil, but Jiffy Lube does it faster. I can whittle my own dog toys, but… you get the idea.

As in all things, companies and individuals must decide what’s worth doing on their own vs. what’s better executed by professionals with experience, insight and speed.