Why Digital Marketing “Gurus” Give the Industry a Bad Name

What’s the threshold for being able to call yourself an expert?

Usually, experts have years of experience in their chosen profession. They’re at the top of their industry, and they shape the path of progress. We wouldn’t typically say that someone without leadership experience or an advanced educational background is an expert.

And yet, there’s no shortage of so-called “digital marketing experts” or “gurus” online whose only real experience seems to be an online certification course and a middling YouTube channel.

The rise of the so-called “digital marketing guru” (aka the “digital marketing ninja,” aka “digital marketing evangelist”) coincided with the practice of social media personal branding. While social media has undoubtedly created fantastic opportunities for real experts to connect and share their knowledge, it has also opened the floodgates for a tsunami of dubiously self-titled “gurus” just looking for a quick payday.

Digital marketing, being a relatively new profession, seems to attract this type of person like flies to honey, and that’s likely because they conflate posting to their own social channels or writing a blog with managing marketing for a major company (although it’s basically the difference between playing peewee soccer and competing in the World…