Ah yes, another exploitable channel for the consultant to explore, social media. Seems like Social Media Consultants are popping up everywhere these days too. The formula seems to work like this. Gain a basic understanding of social media or at least enough to be smarter than your clients, obtain a few hundred if not thousand followers on Twitter and a another few hundred fans on Facebook. Start a blog and start branding yourself as a consultant. That might work in your small town but it's not going to help you sustain a real business.

I'll admit I used to speak empirically to clients when I explained how to leverage social media as part of a marketing strategy. I felt powerful knowing something that the person on the other end of the table did not.

But the reality is that social media is not as hard as most consultants would have you believe. Despite all of the engagement graphs, statistics on sentiment and case studies, it's still just a communication channel. And if you are in business, at least if you plan on staying in business, communicating with your target market is critical. Social Media does not change what you will see, does not change your value as a business and certainly does not require a six-figure consultant to convey a message.

I don't care how many social media books you read, you're wasting your time and money. They will only plant seeds of doubt and get you scared about what can go wrong. Worst yet, they will lead you to believe that social media is different from other advertising or communications mediums. I argue it is not.

Social Media, to me at least, is the art of socializing your brand or business. You are able to leverage it to communicate quicker and with a larger audience, but that does not change your message or core value. When we train clients at our social media agency we focus on the message and the frequency of that message.

It's very similar to an email campaign. And while social media requires it's own team and native minds to execute a strategy properly - it's still not rocket science.

Thoughts?