image by Theodore Scott

Occasionally, when I meet people in person the conversation will go something like this:

Acquaintance: Hey I read your twitter bio. Cool. Where do you kayak?

Me: Well, I have kayaked a few times, but the bio is a metaphor for what I do.

Acquaintance: Oh, do you have a lot of water enthusiasts as clients?

Since Twitter gives only 140 characters, I thought I’d flesh out the details, because there are reasons to have an apprentice kayak guide as your social media consultant:

Apprentice

An apprentice is still learning.
At this point, anyone who claims to be a social media expert is exaggerating, because the landscape is new, evolving and changes happen fast. Just look at Google+ – it’s been around for only a handful of months and already has amassed 50 million(!) users. Not to mention Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg keeps rolling out the changes to stay on top. Old favorites, in the meantime, have come and gone. With all the apps and tools and reports that are introduced daily, it’s important to have someone with you who is still learning, still researching, still curious.

Kayak

It is much easier to navigate a river if you have a kayak, helmet, life jacket, and paddle.
Similarly, there are tools to make navigating the social media stream easier:

Social media calendars, bingo cards, Yahoo Site Explorer, Keyword tracking, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Social Bakers, realtime search tools like Topsy and Social Mention, Twitter analytics tools like TweetReach, Facebook Insights, Facebook Ads, CoComment to keep track of blog comments, Boardreader to track comments on forums and discussion groups.

A guide will direct you to the best tools for your project and see that you use them properly.

Guide

You can’t get down the river if you don’t know where you are going – a guide can help you figure out where you want to go and help you craft a plan to get there.

This is especially true with social media.

It’s ok to jump in and test the waters in your neighbor’s backyard pool, but for a campaign important to your organization, you need to first figure out the destination – the goal of the campaign. That key information will help you and your guide craft a plan to achieve that goal.
Create a measurable SMART goal so that you can adjust tactics as you go:

Specific – something like a 10% increase in ticket sales or blog comments or Facebook Likes
Measurable – if measuring an increase, establish a baseline first
Attainable – if you just opened your coffee shop, sales will not double from a Facebook coupon
Realistic – see attainable
Timely – a time frame for your campaign

 
You’ll have a much better time traveling down the river if you do it with an experienced teacher. An apprentice kayak guide who’s been there before, can point out the right tools, and help you attain your goals while getting through the social stream in one piece.