Gaining a Formal Social Media Education in a DIY World

@shonali Thanks for the mention! BTW, I really like your idea of calling quotable tweets tweetbites! @ginidietrich

@alyssa_lai however that won't take away the need to "show" what you can do; no use having credential and 10 Twitter followers.

@alyssa_lai Right now mostly DIY, but it will become "professionalised"/formalised (already happening)...

Great guest post Martin.  I agree that social media can be taught. Everything can be taught to an extent.  For example, someone can learn about the different platforms, SEO, etiquette, marketing, writing, digital strategy, content management.  However, more than most disciplines, I don't think anyone can become an expert and can be qualified to provide counsel on social media without having their own experience building their personal brand using social media, curating their own content, trying (and failing) at different tactics.  In order to really counsel on social media, you need to have a "feel" for it, developed over time through hard work and lots of hours.

@JonMikelBailey @spinsucks Typical of emerging occupations, it takes a long time for colleges, certifications, and training to catch up.

The funny thing about marketing that I've found is that a bit of DIY and street smarts have always been necessary for real success. You cannot get by on classes alone. Sometimes, you need to go out and make some serious mistakes, so you create real world learning opportunities for yourself.

That said, I don't frown on any sort of formal training if it is honest and holistic. I gave a class for SCORE last night to small business owners on Social Media Marketing. I spent the majority of the class talking about buyer personas and crafting a quality user experience. I think many course teach tricks. But, and you figure this out pretty quickly, the ones that are legit teach lessons that transcend all social channels. Oh, and buy Marketing in the Round, it's badass.

I can definitely see technical classes in the marketing/advertising, communications or computer science programs of schools becoming important offerings.

That said my biggest concern with webinars and classes people pay for from the 'Social Media' world might include a ton of spin and bias. Like Social Media Week will be biased with a very pro-social media spin on anything they teach is my expectations. I would be much more likely to take someone seriously who took Spin Sucks Pro seminars than something put on by Facebook or Brian Solis.

But the web rocks for DIY everything from cooking to design to learning languages. If people want to learn they can. I think what kind of content a person seeks to learn and from what source is critical. You gave readers definitely some good guidance @martinwaxman 

@AlisonGJ Thanks Alison!

 @martinwaxman Thanks for this post. I found this piece really useful and I guess it is only a matter of time before it will be part of the establishment. I really do feel that it is really important to be clear why you want to study social media and be really clear about what you are looking for. Its such a wide subject, it is easy to get lost.

I definitely appreciated this post. As a recent college PR graduate, I definitely felt that I had to teach myself social media. Granted, I had LOTS of help and I sought out as much information as I could, but as I grew up in central Illinois- it was hard to have full frontal access to what I wanted. It will be nice to see social media being more integrated into the college curriculum. I really believe that it's important to learn. I mean look at me- it's now my profession! :) Thanks for the post, great read! 

Thx! RT @mdbarber Need some formal classes in soc media? @martinwaxman has some ideas on how to do that on SpinSucks http://t.co/CAyDp4V9

We could actually do so many follow-ups to this post - conferences, books, accredited programs, etc. 

Nothing beats actually putting it into practice. I think some of the best in the business are those who have used it on their own businesses and then expanded it to help others. 

As well, those of us on the agency side - we experiment with our own agencies and then put it into practice for our clients. It's still so young but eventually all this stuff (if it isn't already) will be baked into the university curricula. For now, everyone realizes it's a matter of experimentation. The sooner you can see something is not working, the better, so you can modify. We have one client in particular who says, "I'm not afraid to fail." all the time. THere are several jokes there, but in all seriousness, that's the beauty of all this digital stuff; you can find out quickly what isn't working and fix it right away!

@HealthIsSocial Exactly! Read my essay& RT #ALS/social media importance http://t.co/8Qd6pnTK

@ginidietrich TY-Great piece! So tired of non-experts who seem to have the most to say. Stop w/the chats & start learning! :) @martinwaxman

I don't know all the details, but Full Sail in Florida offers both an undergrad and Masters program in Internet Marketing, and I believe you can take it on campus as well as online. My one nephew is in the undergrad program, while a friend is about to start the graduate level program.  And I'm just putting that out there with little knowledge of the quality of the program. I do know that they have had some pretty big names as guest speakers, and they do a good job of placement once you graduate.