Beware of Self-Proclaimed Social Media Gurus!
There’s a fellow I know who is extremely personable, but he’s also a bumbler as a social media expert. He doesn’t think he is, but he is.
He has at least two clients. He regularly shoots them in the foot. Not just occasionally (which would be bad enough) but regularly. When he puts his fingers to the keyboard, he makes unforgivable mistakes that reveal his inattention to detail–and he can’t even spot them to fix them.
He has NO IDEA he’s shooting his clients in the foot! None whatsoever.
(Or, if he does, SHAME ON HIM!!!)
Here’s his most recent flub (you’ll laugh, but it’s far from a laughing matter):
He re-posted a Facebook tribute to the soldiers who fell at Normandy and wrote: “These are the men on that day fought for freedom! we should never forgive them!”
The first sentence is a nightmare grammatically. The first word of the second sentence isn’t capitalized and its sentiment is insane: We should never forgive them?!
He meant “forget,” I’m sure…
I have written to his clients (they’re friends) to let them know he is doing them no favors, but they love the guy (and again, as a person I’m mighty fond of him myself!) and (I suspect) don’t want to hurt his feelings. They’d rather suffer the consequences of his ineptitude than confront the reality that he’s a nearly constant bumbler of the written word.
It makes me furious. I know actual social media experts who are hungering for clients, while he reaps the rewards of being likable, local and available. (Of course he’s available; no one with the ability to assess quality will hire him. One look at his present clients’ social media pages or his portfolio–if he has one–would send them screaming for the exits.)
And that’s the saddest thing of all: The clients are themselves handicapped by their inability to see everything this guy gets wrong, so they can’t correct him, either. One client has a less-than-fifth grade education; I don’t know the education level of the other, but English and grammar were likely problematic subjects for them in school.
His clients are friends of mine! I hate to see their businesses suffering because they can’t see what he gets wrong. But I can only warn them, which I’ve done repeatedly. They persist, and so I sigh…
It’s insane.
If you can’t tell when a provider is likely to shoot you in the foot, get a second opinion from someone like me who knows the ropes. You can hire me to look over a body of work or a portfolio and let you know if the person you’re considering will help or hurt you.
No professional (or even amateur) you hire should be shooting you in the foot as they do your bidding…
PLEASE GET A SECOND OPINION IF YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUFFICIENTLY COMPETENT TO CHOOSE A PROVIDER YOURSELF. THERE IS NO SHAME IN HIRING AN EXPERT IN AREAS WHERE YOU’RE LACKING KNOWLEDGE. AND THERE’S LESS RISK AND FAR MORE SAFETY AND SECURITY IN DOING SO!
