The Social Media Expert, Who is He?

Show me someone that knows how to monetize social media, and thus understands the actual value brought to its users, and you'll have your expert.  Building apps for the sake if building apps is pretty lame.  The person that builds an actual useful app or understands the potential of an app, "gets it". 

I think there is a world of hurt out there around the notion of "monetization," or "transaction" and social media.  Personally, I think the hurt is misplaced.  Let's face it, people do need to get paid for their intellectual endeavors, whether that is for designing a great app or moderating a productive conversation.  If you think of social media as an online, 24/7 conference, then if there if value to be had in that conference, then people are willing to pay for it.  And yes, at the risk of inviting criticisms from Augie and others, I would venture that relationships do have value, which can be monetized, but hopefully in a way that is acceptable to both parties ("transactions.")  The big change with social media is that these transactions and monetizations (if that is a word) take place in a more transparent and inter-active fashion.  I hope our differences on the Augie are mostly semantic, because yours is a thinking I hugely respect.

Maybe there difference we're seeing is between 3rd-party versus branded social media.  Should Facebook make money, considering the millions who use it?  Certainly.  But should Comcast, who is using Twitter for customer service, "monetize" their efforts?  Should Starbucks monetize their efforts with their idea communities?  In these cases, the value isn't specifically monetary, but return is provided in other ways (better consumer perception, increased loyalty, etc.)

To answer this, I go back to defining Social Media - at least in a loose sense of the term. Social Networking preceded Social Media as a "buzzword" and more precisely identified the effects and causes of growing online communities and collaborative efforts. This heralds the idea of "free thinking" and "free information". That is central to the social community sphere. Social Media, on the other hand, seems to be a new term that takes advantage of these social relationships that already exist (or that quickly form around an object or idea or cause) and gives it an economic rooting. It is a term that is derived precisely to monetize "traditional" activities that are amplified by the "social effect". With that said then, in defining a Social Media Expert, I would also consider it a person who understands both the traditional forms of economics, as well as how to successfully take advantage of the social influence that can have a profound effect on the bottom line. But, I also think its important to adhere to the "don't be evil" effort. This means that a Social Media Expert knows how to do as described above, but also do so while preserving the social environment, such as avoiding abuses of the system.