99.5% of social media experts are clowns, according to Gary Vaynerchuk (a bit of a social media expert himself) interviewed on TechCrunch. As someone who lives in Brighton, with its thriving new media community and unfortunate penchant for trendophilia, I have to confess that his statement has a ring of truth about it. I have seen their collapsing cars, their oversized shoes, and on more than one occasion have had water squirted at my specs by their trick buttonhole flowers. In other words: I’ve attended a lot of social media presentations. As soon as the Powerpoint arrives at its final slide, you ask yourself: ‘Well it sounded great, but what did he actually say?’. As a topic, social media has become yawn-inducing. It’s high on the hype curve and trending downwards as typically most of what you hear is hot air. So, should publishers waste any time at all even thinking about social media? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Continue reading →