10 Ways to Spot Someone Who Doesn’t Really Know Social

Just because you are on social media does not mean you understand it, in the same way you can’t do brain surgery on me because you have a brain.

People come into social media marketing claiming to understand it because they have an ounce of experience that is remotely related. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about kids fresh out of college or Baby Boomers running Facebook accounts for their small business. I’m talking about serious professionals working for some of the best agencies in the world.

Before I get started, this is in jest and quite hyperbolic. We are all always learning because our industry is changing every second of every day. Yes, if I’ve worked with you and some of these sound familiar, you may be my muse. Please know, we’ve all been this person at least once. Including me.

Here’s how to spot them:

1. They don’t understand the metrics.

Here are some specific scenarios to look out for:

• You’re running an awareness campaign and they’re worried about CTR.
• You’re running a direct response campaign and they are wondering why there are so many negative comments.
• They ask how estimated ad recall is different from ad recall (hint: estimated ad recall is estimated).

2. They’re quick to say that Facebook is dead or dying.

I mean, they’re probably right. With 1.87 billion users and $22.4 billion in revenue, Facebook should really be concerned about the state of their business. How will they go on? If we’re being real with ourselves, they’re only the second largest ad network in the world. They’ll likely be obsolete within months.

3. They are amped for the war room.

These individuals are aware that throwing around the phrase “war room” at eager beaver clients gets them super amped. What they don’t understand is that every day, every hour should be a war room. Having an always on strategy for listening and responding to culture in realtime is an exhausting notion to them.

4. They recommend an A-list celebrity as an influencer.

It’s usually framed in the following delirious, buzzword-filled context:

“ In order to really amplify this campaign and get the optimal amount of reach, we should enlist influencers that really speak to the target. We can leverage their passionate fanbase in order to generate excitement around our brand. From there we can engage with the influencers’ content in order to latch on to the buzz they’ve created in an organic and meaningful way”

5. They consistently mention hashtags in every meeting.

Frequently asked questions include:

• What’s our branded hashtag going to be for this campaign?
• Which hashtags are our target using that we can put into this tweet to get more engagement?
• Why are there only hashtags in the Twitter copy but not on Facebook?

6. They talk about “The Role of Social” as if it’s all the same.

Every time someone writes a channel plan that says that “the role of social is to generate engagement,” a kitten dies. Here are some analogies I came up with to demonstrate how absurd this sounds:

• The role of tools is to do stuff
• The role of cars is to go places
• The role of food is to be eaten

They under-value the power of social listening

7. They are a conference Googler.

In other words, they Google phrases they don’t understand during meetings. Commonly Googled phrases include:

• “what is periscope”
• “what is the difference between VCR and VR”
• “cinemagraph”
• “dunk in the dark”
• “what does fleek mean”

8. Their personal social media channels are… underwhelming.

They are anxious to tell multi-billion dollar companies how to get more Instagram followers, but they only have 75 of their own. Their average Facebook post typically rakes in a whopping total of 8 likes. Their Twitter account is a string of links to news articles from other people.

9. They talk about social like it’s secondary to TV.

The vast majority of people who work in digital/social have chosen to do so because it’s what we are passionate about. Anyone who thinks that we’re here because we couldn’t make it doing TV spots, die.

10. Their cultural references are consistently outdated.

This many manifest in a few ways:

• Whenever they send you something they think you may like, you’ve seen it already, at least 3 days prior.
• They insist that YouTube celebrities are the new influencers and should be cheaper than a real celebrity.
• Their idea of best-in-class work pre-dates Snapchat