For a while there was a meme going around about how to qualify your social media expert and my take on that is that people find the partners they deserve - meaning if someone at a company doesn't do their homework or doesn't know what they want/expect and hires a snake oil salesmen... well, that's really what they were asking for by not preparing appropriately. On the other hand, if someone legitimately researches the space and does some work to understand what they want and need, they will likely be able to determine those most able to help them.
I have a slightly different take on the social media expert conversation and it is that there exists an irony that many people highly active in social media don't actually have great social skills. Now this may be a bit unfair (there are many people highly active in social media that DO have great social skills - and yes, that's my biased judgment) but it is something that continues to amuse and befuddle me although I understand why it happens. Social media emerged from the technology sector and it gave a huge group of individuals who had previously struggled to connect socially a mechanism for doing so. They finally understood the importance of social connections and conversation in moving their perspectives forward and found the means with social media to do so. And because their 'a ha' moments happened later in life, they are in a better position to appreciate and articulate exactly what the impact is - and they are quite passionate about its influence. That is a great thing because being right or smart is only half the battle when trying to move the ball forward - the other half is socializing the idea, winning friends, and building consensus.
Social media has enabled a lot of very smart people to enjoy some of the benefits of social skills that others had all along. This is not to be dismissed - it changes the balance of power and gives access to decision-making to a new segment of people. But once it is brought into an enterprise setting it also sets up a show down at most organizations between the people who without social media were doing just fine on getting their agenda executed thank-you-very-much and those that felt a bit ostracized by the traditional decision-making culture. It can be an ugly dynamic... which is why it is really important for anyone consulting in this space to understand both traditional social skills within the organizational context and how social media impacts the social process - the combination can be very powerful and is much more likely to win friends among executives.
My point is that using social media effectively and having good social skills does not necessarily correlate.. and it's important to be aware of because if you are looking for advice on how to socialize a business process and you hire a social media expert, you might end up with someone who understands how to get a lot of attention on Twitter... but may not get you closer to incorporating social tools and processes in to what you already do.
So what do you look for? Depends on what you need but if you are really looking to socialize a business process you need someone who understands the business process, understands social technologies, AND has social skills. Qualifying someone for their experience with a business process or a technology is pretty straight forward but assessing good social skills is quite difficult - they are often subtle skills which is why they are so effective to begin with but it also makes them hard to identify. Here's my starter list. People with good social skills:
- Warm up their audience - whether in one-on-one conversations or meetings or presentations, people with good social skills know that jumping straight to the goal without a little low impact warm up is not the most effective method to get their point across. As humans we all need to assess the social situation and get comfortable before we will put ourselves our there. It's why so much air time is spent talking about the weather, sports, and entertainment.
- Engage in an active dialog and questioning. People with great social skills understand that they will only positively affect others if they understand the other person's perspective, concerns, and issues and expose some of their own perspectives. Every conversation is a type of negotiation.
- Understand how social dynamics change between one-on-one interactions, small groups, large groups, and crowds - and use those dynamics to effectively drive their agenda.
- Actively prepare for events - people with good social skills will do social research about meeting, conference, and event participants ahead of time. While 'serendipity' is great, they want 'serendipity' to occur with the individuals who can make things happen.
- Have the self-awareness to understand how they are perceived by others in their group, organization, or market - and they don't try to convince others that they really play a different role.
- Do none of the following: look at the ceiling/floor while speaking to others; continually talk about the latest, greatest thing that happened in their life or organization; present for an hour straight without scanning their audience, asking questions, or coming up for air; yell or act dismissively of others; continue to argue a point despite blank stairs and stunned silence; leave you with the feeling that they got a lot of information from you but gave you little information in return.
Now don't get me wrong - there are a lot of experts in a variety of areas without great social skills and they can be extremely valuable in helping you understand the specifics of something - just don't expect them to be able to help you with a social strategy, management, cultural, or leadership issue. Even in the social media space, if you want someone who will get you attention in a social media channel and you have a narrowly defined role to do that, not having social skills may be OK. Knowing what you want is always the key. If you are looking to integrate social into business processes or socialize your organization... being an expert user of social media is not enough. Like almost everything in life, hiring people or expertise is much easier if you know what you want and where your boundaries are - and that is the hard part. Do you need social media presence or do you need a social strategy and should you be building a social media presence without a strategy?
Oh, and if you are hiring a social media expert just to satisfy the CEO who wants one but you really don't want to ensure the effort is successful... well, any random social media 'expert' will do... just be sure they don't know too much :)
Rachel
http://SocialBusinessToday.net - The Best in Social Business
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