Social media is a new field and many people are jumping into the bandwagon trying to take advantage of the hype. This reminds me of the early days of search engine marketing when folks with no more experience than having read through the Google Adwords guidelines would bill themselves as qualified  experts to run search engine marketing campaigns.
One interesting thing that is happening right now in the Social Media space is that folks that are really good at creating value from Social Media (aka Social Media Stars) are leaving their employers to join smaller cutting edge consulting and technology companies that are building services and products that take advantage of this new marketing arena.
To mention a few: David Armano left criticalmass to join Dachis and his last post has to do with Rock Stars which I did not know until now. Jeremiah Owyang left Forrester to join The Altimer Group. Michael Brito leaving Intel to join Edelman. In india a new firm 20:20Social that bills itself as the first Social business consulting company in India has recruited consultant and blogger Gautham Ghosh.
Why is this trend worth noting?
This signals the need to innovate beyond the corporate walls. The move from bigger more stable companies to smaller agencies and consulting companies represent a huge opportunity for professional and personal growth. They are in search for the next big app or the next huge contract where their knowledge can be fully utilized and where they can bend and create the future of a nascent marketing practice.
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Didn't know Brito had moved to Edelman, but I'd hardly call that a small consulting firm! I think a lot of social media "rock stars" were already working in small agencies or were free agents because gaining social media knowledge requires an enormous dedication of time and the constraints of billable hourly requirements within traditional agencies doesn't allow for that. A year and a half ago, nearly all the marketers I saw on Twitter, for example, were free agents. The agency types didn't join until much later.
Good point. However I am looking more as an indicator. There are many people that are taking the plunge into agencies and moving away from corporate and from top consulting firms and joining smaller more cutting edge firms focused around social media.
When I think about social media stars, I think about the ones who are influencing not only their own audience, but companies and building software and business processes to monetize social media.
Hi Antonio, thanks for mentioning me
Yeah, we at 2020 Social are looking at how businesses can leverage the power of social technologies to meet their fundamental goals like increase revenue, decrease cost, design better products and processes, enable stronger relationships and increase productivity 