The inevitable backlash against social media specialists has been growing recently. The problem seems mainly to stem from self-described ‘social media experts’ who aren’t able to back up their claims, despite the fact the same is true for a lot of other people attempting to promote themselves in other professions. For the record, the only time terms such as ‘expert’ or ‘thought leader’ should really be used is in reference to someone other than yourself!

One of the main reasons given for dismissing social media expertise is that ‘social media marketing is just common sense’. And despite the fact I’m hired to work for clients in the social media field, I’d say that’s true to some extent. The basic principles of social media such as being interesting, engaging in conversation etc are pretty much common sense – so I don’t need to run through the whole list.

But if common sense basic principles are enough to do without specialists then explain the following:

• Budgeting is common sense but we still have accountants and financial advisors (and high levels of personal debt)
• Being fit and healthy is common sense but we still have coaches and trainers.
• Avoiding addictive substances is common sense but we still have problems with caffeine, nicotine, alcohol etc.

I think you might get my point, but essentially you can boil anything down to common sense – running the country, curing world hunger, or having a happy relationship and family life.

But we hire external experts because we either need them to help us plan how to do it, to support us in doing it, or to kick us into ensuring we do it. We hire them because they live and breathe that subject and will help us to surpass the common sense bits and take us into a more efficient and effective area.

And common sense is a rarely used tool.

I’ll leave it to someone like Mark Earls to fully explain how many of the decisions we post rationalise as ‘common sense’ are actually the result of other factors, such as following the herd.

And plenty of people have looked at why businesses regularly fail at anything approaching common sense. In fact corporations are often legally prevented from some common sense actions.

Common sense tends to be something that we refer to in hindsight, normally in response to a mistake. And often in response to mistakes in marketing and particularly in social media. We’ll ask why someone didn’t use their common sense, and inevitably see someone else do a similar thing within hours.

So the next time you find someone dismissing social media marketing, or anything else, as common sense, ask yourself how many qualified specialists they’ve dealt with in the last 24 hours. And if you’re worried about ‘social media experts’ the clue is to not look at their self-chosen title, but to look at their work, their references, their reputation, and their results. If that’s all missing, it isn’t a problem with social media, it just conforms to Sturgeons Law like everything else.