We admit to being a little amused…

The controversy over social media “experts” continues. We wrote about it when Business Insider offered conflicting pieces called “Why I Will Never Hire a Social Media Expert” and “Why Some Social Media Experts Are Good“.

To make the discussion as confusing as possible (we guess), AdAge has an article up today that explains “Why You Should Replace Your Social Media Experts With Wild Animals“.

Interesting (and, to us, amusing) concept:

But when it comes to social we all have a leg up: Deep in our genetic core we’re all fundamentally social wild animals. Being good at social is part of what it means to be a good human being.

Um… yeah.

Here’s the thing. It’s true that many animals, including people, are social by nature. But it’s a survival mechanism, not necessarily a job skill. For example, we’ve seen ants in the kitchen that were as socially connected as anyone could hope to be. They definitely communicated and worked as a tight-knit team.

That didn’t keep us from squashing the little sons-o-guns from here to Kingdom Come. (And then spraying them with haz-mat level chemicals, just to be sure.)

Humans work a little differently. (And it’s not just that they’re tougher to squash.) Once we develop a skill set we can depend on, that generally becomes our means of survival… our job, or our business. We tend to specialize. Now, that’s not to say you can’t learn social media skills as well. We’ve told you before:

This ain’t rocket science. Of course the average small business could do this on their own. IF!

IF you have a strong grasp of social media, or the time to invest in learning as much as possible about a constantly changing venue. And IF you have the resources to devote personnel to monitor and update your social media presence in real time. And IF you can accomplish this without taking away time and energy from the business you’re trying to promote in the first place.

We’ve also written about the “Opportunity Costs” of do-it-yourself new media marketing, by which we mean the amount you’re paying yourself or an employee to run your social media campaign… as opposed to the same time spent doing the business of your business.

We’re still not using the title “experts” here. And while we’ll never claim you can’t learn social media skills, we do quite proudly claim to already possess the knowledge you need.

And unlike the “naturally social” wild animals AdAge suggests you hire…

We won’t eat you. Promise.

Give us a call.