An open letter to all “thought leaders”

I used to get in trouble in college classes for making statements and not backing them up. It was much easier to make generic statements about what I believed to be true and not take the time or effort to back up my statements.

While the bloggosphere is a, thankfully, much different world than college, I see a similarly troubling trend. There seems to be an ever increasing number of posts in the marketing space that are, at best, half thoughts with no backing for anything they’re talking about. Granted these are blogs, so you can do that

It’s easy for people to sit on the side lines and throw rocks (I do it all the time). It’s harder (and not as much fun) to recognize the good that companies contribute and then offer constructive criticism when appropriate.

I’m not saying that there aren’t times to let loose a good tirade and give someone or some company a piece of your mind. And I’m not addressing the straight up haters. They have their place in society and I don’t expect them to change.

Who I’m talking to are all the wannabe “thought leader” marketing bloggers who contribute very little original to the bloggosphere. They repeat the same Web 2.0/WOM buzzwords that they read on 6 other blogs that day and try and sound smart by repackaging it and lobbing grenades generically at “Big Companies today”.

The real damage done is something that these “thought leaders” will never see. It makes my job, the job of the other authors on this blog and the jobs of the other social media workers at other “Big Companies today” a lot harder.

Why? Because our executives and managers that we’re pitching our next idea to see the generic pot shots that are usually not founded in any real business logic and question weather these people really represent our customers or are they just trying to drum up work for themselves.

Now a well thought out argument grounded in good business sense goes a long way. A great example of this is KDPaine’s ongoing blog posts about her issues with HP customer support. Her professionalism and our dialog gave me an example that I’ve been able to pass around on how approachable bloggers can be.

If you really want to be a “thought leader” then here are my 5 suggestions:

• Say something original
• Say something constructive
• Point out the good and bad
• Say it like you were talking to a non blogger
• Only talk about what you know

Now you may not care how hard or easy my job is. I don’t really know why you would. I also never expected (or wanted) my job to be easy. But if we all believe that things would be better if businesses participated in social media in a transparent, value added manner then shouldn’t we all be doing the same thing?

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Big Companies, Thought Leaders, Marketing, Consultants,

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