There is something going on in the social media world that is really bothering me.
The “experts” are taking advantage of people who feel like they’re going to be left behind if they don’t figure out Google+. Now.
And, because we all are limited in our time, people are shelling out money to have someone teach them how to use the tool.
Stop it.
Right now.
I alluded to this in Gin and Topics this past Friday when I linked to Allen Stern’s very funny, tongue-in-cheek $2,500 course that also allows you into one of his circles.
But this is ridiculous. As of this writing, it has been 24 days since Google+ launched. That is not enough time to figure out a) if it has business applications, b) how it truly works for networking, and c) what it’s value is going to be. For heaven’s sakes. If it goes the way of Buzz and Wave, you’ll have wasted your money.
Not to mention, it’s still in beta and doesn’t open up to the world until the end of this month. It will be at least a year of use before we figure out it’s idiosyncrasies.
But there are still people out there claiming to have all the secrets because they claim to have introduced Twitter to the business world so surely they understand how Google+ is going to affect your daily life. Add to that, they’ve spent 250 hours inside the tool, learning and using.
If that’s the case, I want their jobs because that means they’ve spent 11 hours, every day, for the past three weeks using Google+.
Sure, it’s my job to stay ahead of the trends and to understand them so that you can short cut your education. But it’s been 24 days.
Twenty four days.
I don’t have 11 hours every day to spend trying to learn it for you, as much as I would love to spend all my time with the shiny, new penny.
Pay attention to Google+. Get in there and try out some things (I’ll send you an invite, if you don’t have one). But it’s waaaaaay too early to say what it’s going to do. And it’s certainly too early to be paying experts to tell you how to use it.
Save your money. The time will come (or not) when you need to learn how to use it for business. If you spend a little time in it now, say an hour or two a week, you won’t have to pay anyone to teach you how to use it.
It’s a tool. Just like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, blogging, and 8Tracks. Wait until it’s been around long enough to understand how it fits a business strategy.