The social media bubble: Does it exist and will it burst?

I never thought I'd be interested in hearing about social media from General Motors.

GM's Christopher Barger sat down with ZDNet's Jennifer Leggio and talked about how he handles social media and his thoughts on the future. The interview is a great read, but Barger's comment about a social media bubble really piqued my interest.

Barger says the social media bubble is going to burst just like the dot com bubble a decade ago.

But do we even have a bubble? Is it going to burst?

I completely agree with Barger when he talks about social media "gurus." Most of their advice is absolutely worthless. They define engagement as constant linking and retweeting without any engagement of their followers. These people also believe having thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook fans is the path to success.

These egomaniacs have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. They take advantage of businesses and people to make themselves look good. Those awful books about how to increase your presence on Twitter? These people write them. The 'RT me and get 500 followers' scams? Yep, these gurus are the culprits.

Barger argues the "gurus" will cause the social media bubble to burst.

I don't buy it.

The number of followers, likes and the ridiculous Klout score mean absolutely nothing. Having one million followers means absolutely nothing if there is no interaction and engagement (unless you're already a celebrity in person). But five hundred followers who regularly interact and engage are of great value.

The "gurus" will fall apart when people see through their charade. Sure, some people will fall into their trap and end up not utilizing social media properly. But this happens in business and real life regularly. There are people who think they will get rich fast by selling knives for Vector. I don't think these people are so much creating a bubble as they are taking advantage of unknowledgable social media newbies.

And how awful is the Klout score? If you think the Klout score matters, I'm here to tell you to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. Boiling down social media relationships and engagement into a score makes no sense. You can't put a number on relationships. It's like giving a girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband a score based on dates, intimacy and overall relationship.

"Susan, honey, the relationship score-o-meter says we are only at a 42. We need to boost our sex life, have one more kid and travel to Australia in order to increase our score."

Klout is just ridicuous.

There is no bubble. Even if there was, Barger's only argument for the burst is the proliferation of "gurus." This is hardly enough to make the bubble burst.

However...

There are social media specialists who are actually the real deal, though. These are people who encourage discussion and engagement within the community. They realize social media ROI can't be assigned a simple numeric value, but rather is an analyzation of relationships and discussion monitoring. These specialists provide compelling content and spark discussion with thoughtful ideas.

We shouldn't discount all social media specialists because they are outnumbered by "gurus." There are many specialists who can help people and companies do great things with social media. Just stay clear of those who say you will be a social media opion leader in a week. And the ones peddling a book.