Whenever I see bright young people promoting themselves as social media specialists, and even getting jobs where that is the entire job – I think “glad that’s not me!” but I haven’t been able to articulate why this makes me uncomfortable on their behalf.  It seems a bit untenable as a career choice.  But why?

It’s certainly not that I think social media is a fad.  Far from it. Yes, I’m an old-school PR and marketing person, and yes, most of the new crop of social media gurus are not much older than my daughter. 

But I’ve kept up with the times. I like to think I’ve incorporated the best ideas and techniques from both old and new media. I tweet, and I definitely see the business value of it.  I haven’t blogged (until now) because I wasn’t sure I had anything to say that anyone other than my immediate friends and family would care about.

But now I have an opinion to share on this whole social media expert phenomenon.

Here’s what bothers me:  it reminds me of a woman named Leanne that I met in the early ‘80s.  Leanne was our company’s Word Processing Expert.  This was her entire job.  She was the sole expert who had been properly trained on the expensive new IBM word processing machines.  Our company had three of these precious machines, kept in a special room under the watchful eye of Leanne.  Only if you completed her training (and submitted to her close supervision) would you earn the privilege of processing words.  Otherwise it was back to the green-screen 3270 terminals and IBM Script with you.  Word processing was the domain of specialists, and Leanne was the gatekeeper.

Sound familiar?

I believe that being a social media specialist is not a long-term career option because every day in every way, social media is becoming part of everyone’s job.  It isn’t an arcane and specialized discipline, any more than word processing is today.

If a customer has a problem with a product and they tweet about it, they don’t want a reply from the social media person. They want to hear from someone in tech support who can help them.  If there is banter going on in the blogosphere about the implications of a new technical development – the social media specialist shouldn’t be participating in the discussion. It should be a subject matter expert from product management or engineering.

In these scenarios, one could say the role of the social media expert is to stay attuned to these social conversations and calls for help, and to direct the SME to participate.  But really, it’s not that difficult. There are plenty of simple free tools to stay attuned (Google Alerts anyone?), and staying attuned is an important part of almost everyone’s job.  If it isn’t, it should be.

So I can’t help but worry about those bright-eyed young people who are putting all their career eggs into the social media basket.  I’ve recently seen two of them lose those jobs, and they are now seeking employment in a very tough economy. 

Yes, social media is important, and will only increase in importance.  No argument there. But it’s part of a bigger picture and belongs in the context of all kinds of other jobs. Be a good PR person who understands and participates in targeted social communities as part of your job.  Be a smart marketing person who takes advantage of online communities to be better at what you do. Be a responsive customer support person who replies to tweets for help.

But don’t try to make a full-time job of social media. Don’t expect employers to continue seeing the value of a full-time staff person exclusively dedicated to it.  It’s not going to last.  Just ask Leanne.