How do you define a social media expert?

The term "social media expert" has a negative conotation, particularly among the people who are quite obviously experts. There were three posts on the topic of social media experts this week, and I'd encourage you to check out all three:

Lisa Hoffmann - she had always been against using the term social media expert because it is difficult to be an expert on an industry that is moving so quickly. However, her post the other day argued that because she (and others) were unwilling to take the mantle that it had been taken over by people who were far from experts.

Mack Collier - his points are similar to Lisa's, though he does take some consultants to task for relying solely on a lengthly client list as a demonstration of expertise.

Beth Harte - she could be considered a social media expert, but doesn't want to take that title because her feeling is that once you become an expert you stop learning. (not sure I agree with her argument, but it's worth reading anyway)

Twitter

Lots of good stuff written recently about how to "spread" your Twitter network. Better yet, how to make your posts go "viral." Mack Collier had a good post on his blog a couple of days ago about how to get your tweets retweeted. These are very common sense, but it is much harder if you don't work at developing your network of people you are interested in talking to.

Handling Negative Blog Comments

I think this is an issue we are getting from clients more and more often as they venture into the social media world. Mack Collier gives some great, and very practical tips on how to respond to negative blog comments on the MarketingProfs Web site.

SM in a Crisis

If you aren't following @MackCollier on Twitter you should be. ALWAYS has great stuff, and it always is on a different aspect of social media. Today's post on using sm in a crisis is particularly great. As he notes, sm is often viewed as a medium applicable only to marketing and media. Crisis comms professionals can use the same technology to their advantage.

http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2009/01/want_to_learn_how_to_use_socia_1.html