Richard Giles

I know. A bunch of people are going to tell me that I’m late to the party on this one, but social media has jumped the shark.

Today I’ve started the process of removing the term social media from my bios. It’s now plainly obvious that the title Social Media Specialist means nothing.

Social media specialists are more common than seagulls at a beach picnic. Every day I look at someone’s twitter bio, or I see an event with a bunch of people calling themselves social media experts. And I’ve never heard of these people before – which in itself might not be amazing, but in a city as small as Perth it’s ridiculous to have not met someone who “specialises” in the field I’ve been involved in for 15 years.

That leads me to believe one of two things: that social media is so easy that we don’t need specialists anymore. Or that there are a bunch of virtual snake oil salespeople selling social media specialism to the world. Either way, the title is now sullied.

So, until I find a better title, I’m relabelling myself an Internet Specialist.