I’m not a fan of Valleywag, but sometimes their blunt opinions ring more true than not. That is certainly true for the Valleywag post, On hiring social media twits. I should know, my role is as a social media strategist at Experian Consumer Direct forces me to deal with the shortcomings of the field – like proof of ROI. My team has begun to ask many of the same things the article harps on, however I do see the value for companies to have a social media strategist. Companies need to enter ‘the conversation’, to move from monologue marketing to dialogue marketing.

In the past you could argue why would they need an SEO expert, but companies need someone to keep an eye on things. Search is driving more and more customer accusition, so it’s in a company’s interest to keep an eye on it – as they say, someone has to be accountable. The same will be true for social media in the future. It isn’t going to go away. That said, the social media field is in a bit of a echo chamber right now, but that’s to be expected – it’s still early.