I am not a social media expert

I am not a social media expert.

I am an enthusiast. I am happy to share anything useful I may have learnt (for whatever that may be worth), but I make no claim to be able to advise others on how to use SM to grow their business.

However, as Charon QC pointed out in his Outsourced and Ghostwritten post this morning, there are all manner of experts or even "mavens" and "gurus" who are staking their claim as paid social media experts.

I have been participating in a debate on Twitter this weekend about the wisdom (or otherwise) of outsourcing your law firm's tweets to legal marketers or other social media rockstars.

For what it's worth, the solicitors and barristers I follow on Twitter (many of whom are using Twitter very succesfully for business development) were universally against the idea... but then again none of them would claim to be "gurus" either.

I may not be a maven, but I know enough to recognise an attempt to court controversy and boost web traffic for a new business when I see one so I am stepping back rather than fanning the flames.

What I will say is that if your web marketer, PR agency or guru suggests you outsource your tweets to them then it pays to ask them a few questions about their social media credentials and track record.

Ian Lurie's post on his Conversation Marketing site:- 10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media 'Expert' is a good starting point if you are looking for some relevant questions to ask.

If they have radical ideas about outsourcing social media content and the like then ask them for hard details about the clients they are using them for and some solid data on the ROI those clients have received (Olivier Blanchard's slide deck on the Basics of Social Media ROI which I have linked to before is an excellent resource if you are struggling with how to define this).

If your social media "expert" can't answer these type of questions convincingly then think long and hard about handing over your money.

Anyone can have a theory on how best to use Twitter, but my personal view if they can't lay out their track record convincingly and actually demonstate some ROI?

I couldn't give two hoots.