In case you missed it, the “social media guru certification” crowd is at it again. Hat tip to Jim Mitchem for pointing me to this new one earlier today. Here… let’s give them lots of traffic. (And get caught up on the fun.)
Pretty quickly after being posted, the LinkedIn comment thread started to turn sour. Here are several of the comments so far:
Jim Mitchem • What? They didn’t offer me a certification for being a copywriter. I just did it. Won awards and sold a ton of product. No certification necessary. They didn’t offer certifications for me being an entrepreneur who launched one of the first virtual ad agencies in the world in 2001. I just did it. Won clients and shifted perception. They didn’t offer a certification when I helped launch Boxman Studios in the social space (exclusively) in 2009 based solely on a concept only to yield 6 million a year in sales in just 3 years. I just did it. No certification necessary. You ask how I differentiate myself from the fake gurus out there? By avoiding snake oil certifications. And just putting my mind to doing something right. Seriously, if you’re trying to get certified to be a social media rock star – you might want to make an appointment with a psychologist as well.
Jon Evans • I’ve been in the social media strategy field for sometime now and I have NEVER been asked for a certification. It is disappointing to see someone try to make money off of scrambling “Social Media Consultants” because those agents can’t figure out how to run their business and make money. I would also like to point out that the people that are most defensive are the ones that stand to benefit from the sale of this product. I find that interesting… Bad form folks just bad form.
Jessica Wicks • Until there is a professional standards body for licensing social media professionals (unlikely to EVER happen) that recognizes this ‘certification’, it means nothing. Perhaps you could use your certificate to con a couple clients into thinking that there is a governing body over the profession? Other than that, I can’t think of a reason anyone would open their wallet to this offer. You’re better off to sell this course as a learning opportunity only – or better yet offer it for free to promote something of value you’ve created like an analytical tool or aggregator. There are so many sources out there for FREE advice on using social media – perhaps you should take note. By offering to ‘certify’ me, I’m going to completely ignore your links.
Todd Copilevitz • This is the worst kind of entrepreneur, someone who sees where the crowd is moving and tries to cash in from behind. Actually there is some value to this program, it will allow me to quickly dismiss as irrelevant anyone holding this certification.
Linton Robinson • This is a sick joke. This entire type of mentality is a stupid rip-off.
Okay… You get the idea. (You can go check out the thread for yourself here… assuming that any of the comments are still there. One of my questions was deleted just a few minutes ago, so I have to assume that the folks behind this thing are being selective about what actually stays in the thread and what doesn’t… but no worries, we’ll come back to that in two shakes.)
A few points:
1. Read the whole thread. It’s well worth it. The problems I raise and the way that they are “addressed” or answered by the person who seems to be organizing this thing will fill you in on several of the things I find suspect about certification programs like this. (Namely that without verified accreditation, any kind of so-called “certification” is worthless.)
Note that I have no problem whatsoever with training programs. My issue, which is purely an ethical one, deals with people selling certifications that actually are not. (We’ve been here before.) Especially when the sales pitch includes stuff like this:
Do you think i can find a job after this certification?
Our Social Media certification program was designed by Social Media industry professionals. Combined they have done lot of hiring and one of the important element in any resume is actual social media work experience. That’s the reason we created a project based certification program so right after our program you will have something tangible to show on your resume. After all, in the business world it is WHAT you have done that matters. And no where is this more true than in social media. (Source: http://www.instantetraining.com/certification/smct-mc/)
2. There’s something strange going on with the experts list. When asked who the “top experts” who put this training together were, I was pointed to this list of folks: http://www.instantetraining.com/smct-mc/index.html#experts
Here’s where things get fun. Curious to find some pretty respectable names on the list (not the usual suspects), I reached out to several of them. I quickly heard back from two of them. They both indicated several things:
- Though they had been involved with the organization in the past (free webinars for their book launches, for instance) they were not in any way associated with the certification program.
- Moreover, they had no idea that their names, image and reputations were being used to sell this program.
I’ve only talked to 2 so far, so it isn’t to say that all of the “top experts” listed on that site are unaware that they are being used to sell a program that they did not contribute to… but some of them are, and that’s a little peculiar. I gave the organizers the benefit of the doubt and asked them if they wanted to either comment or amend the list. The answer I received was this:
Bob Tripathi • If they have spoken with us it would be this year and we have them as our on-demand session.
I checked again with those two folks, and that certainly was news to them.
Let’s just leave it at that for now. I don’t want to get between them and this organization. They’re aware of what’s going on now and I will let them handle it how they feel is most appropriate. All I’ve inferred so far is that the list – as it stands as I write this blog post – may not be 100% representative of the “top experts” who are actually involved with this certification program. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. (Better yet, do your own research.)
3. Then I did a little more digging, and it all went sideways from there.
A quick check of the twitter account for the thread poster’s organization (@SocialMediopols, listed at the top of the thread) raised some puzzling questions – and feel free to try this for yourselves:
a) According to http://fakers.statuspeople.com/Fakers/Scores, @SocialMediopols, which currently counts around 9,500 followers, seems to be composed of 85% fake followers, 1% inactive followers and 14% “real” followers. That’s a pretty high percentage of fake followers by any standard. That would mean that… out of 9,500 followers, only about 1,300 aren’t fake. [Note: I mistakenly put the number of followers at 18,000 earlier. That was incorrect. (It was an August figure.)]
I found that surprising. Maybe it was an error, right? Perhaps the app screwed up. So I decided to get a second opinion…
b) I went to TwitterCounter.com and checked out the account’s follower growth for the last 6 months. Here’s what I found:
The most amazing thing I learned from that quick snapshot is that the @SocialMediopolis account grew by exactly 768 net new followers per day from May 31, 2012 to July 4, 2012.
That’s right. Every single day, the account attracted precisely 768 new followers. No variance at all. No 767 one day and 769 the next. Exactly 768 per day, every day, for 36 consecutive days.
Amazing.
Sadly, as if someone had flipped a switch, the follower count started dropping on July 5th, and has been ever since.
Ruh-roh.
4. Upon which my questions about this get mysteriously deleted from the thread.
I brought this information to the attention of Bob, and asked him several questions. They went essentially along the lines of…
- Will buying fake followers be included in the normal certification training, or will that be covered by the top experts in the on-demand calls?
- Will you also explain how not to lose 100+ followers per day once you stop buying fake followers?
- Since your social media community claims to have 400,000 members, why is it that you only have about 3,000 twitter followers? Even if all 9,500 were 100% legit, that’s a very low percentage. 40,000 followers would only be 10% of your membership.
Source: Twitter profile for the @SocialMediopolis account - “We’re the largest #private #community of Social Media Marketing (#SMM) #professionals on the planet! Social Media Marketing on #LinkedIn, over 400,000 members!”
I then offered to connect Bob and his organization to actual social media professionals who might be able to give them pointers on how to build a community on Twitter… but that evidently wasn’t received very well. Instead of answering my questions, my comment was quickly deleted from the thread.
5. Yes, that’s right: deleting my comment will make the tough questions go away. That’s how social media works.
These are the guys selling social media certifications. Awesome. Sounds super legit to me. Please take my money and send me a certificate of “you’re hired.”
Update: I have actually been banned from that thread now. I can’t comment there anymore. Classic fail. 
Okay. It’s all fun and games, but I want to leave you with some constructive advice, so here it is:
1. If you’re going to fake your reach and influence, at least learn how to do it properly. Adding 768 net new followers every single day for a month is something a robot would do. You have to mix it up. 327 here, 781 there… Make it random. You can’t be lazy when it comes to faking your shit. You have to work at it. That’s how the real pros do it.
2. If you fake this stuff, you will get caught. First, as you can see from the thread, our bullshit meters have gotten very good. Second, the tools to uncover the BS are free and available to everyone. It took less than 5 minutes for me to turn out those two reports and see what was going on there. All you need is an internet connection and an espresso, okay? Don’t play these games anymore. Once your reputation is shot in this space, it’s shot. There are far better ways of making money in social media.
3. This is what happens when you delete someone’s comments and then block them from further commenting. You force them to take the discussion elsewhere… like on their blog, and Facebook and Twitter. Had I not been deleted or blocked for merely asking inconvenient questions, I would have never written this post. It could have all gone away in a couple of days. But no. Instead, I came here and wrote about it. Lesson: don’t delete comments on a thread just because the present an inconvenient opinion. Social Media 101. (I wonder if Bob will include that in his certification program.)
4. Social media certifications will not get you hired by anyone. What looks good on a resumé is experience, not some piece of paper some blogger mailed you after attending a few of his webinars and writing an essay. Do the work. Build your own case studies. Do pro-bono work if you have to (that’s how many great portfolios begin), but don’t waste your time and your money on someone’s lame money-making scheme. Especially when the tactics they employ to appear to be legit are so weak that they can be shredded by anyone with an internet connection in just a couple of minutes.
5. There are solid training programs out there that don’t try to pass themselves off as certification programs. If those are too pricey, most of what you need to learn is already available for free on the web anyway. But the good stuff, the classroom-level stuff put together by real professionals, it’s there if you look for it. Just one word of caution: check the “experts” out. See what they’ve done. See who they’ve worked for. Are they just a “social media personality?” A blogger? A speaker? A network marketer with an incredible ground-level opportunity he would like to share with you and thousands of facebook friends? Red flags, all.
6. Go forth and socialize. Learn by doing and watching others. Save your money for something cool… like renewing a gym membership or going on vacation.
As always, this is all a matter of opinion… except for the parts that are, you know… fact-checked. 
Cheers,
O.
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Social Media ROI – Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in your Organization was written specifically to teach managers and executives how to build and manage social media friendly business programs and incorporate social technologies and networks into everyday business operations. The book is divided into four parts: social media program strategy & development, social media program operationalization, social media program management, and best practices in measurement and reporting. If your boss doesn’t yet have a copy, time to fix that. If everyone on your team doesn’t yet have their own copy, fix that too. It makes for a great desk reference.
(Now available in several languages including German, Korean, Japanese and Spanish.)
CEO-Read – Amazon.com – www.smroi.net – Barnes & Noble – Que
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