Could it be? A traditional direct advertising model that is targeted, available to small business and has analytics built right into the platform? Watch this space; ScoutMob may very well be the start of an important trend in small business marketing and perhaps a renewed relevance for more traditional advertising in local markets.

You can listen to Tuesday’s episode of GFR below. The interview with Michael from ScoutMob starts about halfway through. But don’t be too hasty to fast forward through the first half — we were talking with Amy Pedersen of Slimpressions, a truly homegrown Atlanta-area business.

A full transcript of the chat is available here. Thanks so much to Robyn and Cliqset for having us!

In just about every industry, specialty or niche there are generally four types of people: outsiders who know nothing, dabblers who have some knowledge, experts who know a lot, and savants whose knowledge and reputation are nothing less than extraordinary.

Social media seems to buck the trend though. The social realm has its share of true savants with names like Chris Brogan, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Scott Allen and others highlighting the pantheon of superstars. There are plenty of people who don’t know anything — and who will happily admit it. But there are a LOT more “experts” than dabblers. Don’t believe me? A Google search on the subject of “social media expert” will yield over 81 MILLION results.

How did we get so many experts? The short answer is that we don’t actually have a disproportionate number of experts; we have a disproportionate number of dabblers who are confusing practical/tactical knowledge of a subject with strategic expertise. As my colleague Stephanie Frost and I have both said on numerous occasions, social media is, above all else, a communications tool and claiming expertise in social media would be like calling yourself an expert at using a fax machine. It’s nonsense.

A couple of weeks ago I was having a discussion with a couple of other bloggers (who will remain safely anonymous). We were chatting about some recent social media-related conferences and seminars around town and bemoaning that so little good information was exchanged. We wondered if perhaps the social media community was missing a “middle class” — that group of people that know enough to use the tools effectively but little enough that they would still gain benefit from attending a social media conference.

In my opinion, YES, there is a middle class in social media… And virtually all of us are in it. Somehow though, in this Gatsby-like alternate universe we’ve created, people are compelled to artificially elevate themselves into high society; possibly for ego, possibly for financial gain or maybe for both. But what may be most shocking is that the rest of us support this by paying cash money to attend workshops and conferences led by self-proclaimed experts who don’t have a thing to teach us.

I am NOT a social media expert. I am a marketer who has used social media to build my brand and  make valuable connections. In Marketing: Unmasked, the book that Stephanie and I coauthored, the chapter that deals with social media is a high-level overview, meant for novices and outsiders and seeks to explain how social media fits into an overall marketing plan — it’s not a “how to” or a get rich quick scheme designed to make you the next online superstar.

In fact, the only thing that may be more remarkable about my social media resumé than yours is the fact that my weekly radio program has given me personal access to a few of the true experts, savants and thought leaders out there. And, by the way, I won’t call myself expert by association either.

So this is a plea to my colleagues in the Blogosphere, Twitterverse and other imaginary places of which I am apparently a citizen: please remove the words “social media expert” from your bio, profile, business card, t-shirt, etc. If it’s tattooed on your back, start saving for the laser surgery. And if you’re invited to speak on a topic for which you can not offer any real insight, please decline the invitation. Let’s return some semblance of dignity to this medium that we all enjoy using so much.

Yes, social media is revolutionary — yes, it is in fact social media and not email that has grown up to be the “killer app” on the Internet — and yes, we have all gained profit and notoriety by using it well. But let’s give some careful thought before we start throwing the “E” word around… This is all still very new and we are all students of social media. Do we all have to be the teachers too?

This past weekend, I drove from Atlanta to Denver. I had a lot of time on my hands as you can image and I couldn’t help but notice a lot of interesting things as I drove. So what’s the deal with speed limits? The roads themselves don’t change much as you ride the interstate across the country. Some are 2 lanes, some are 6 lanes, some wind and turn a little — but for the most part a highway is a highway. But the rules for driving on them can vary greatly from state to state.

In Missouri, for example, they have two posted speed limits, one for cars and one for trucks, buses and campers; about 10 MPH less than the limit for cars. In Colorado, the speed limit is a whopping 75 MPH.

Speed limits are completely arbitrary and —it would seem — little to do with actual safety. Am I safer driving 65 through Tennessee than I am driving 75 through Colorado? No, it doesn’t appear that way. Consider also that the fastest road in the world, the Autobahn, is also one of the safest.

No, speed limits are about the perception of safety and a means of trying to control the actions of drivers who might not exercise good judgment without the posted limitation. So why do we have them?

I don’t want to entertain an argument here about whether or not speed limits are worthwhile — but my experience driving through seven states in two days got me thinking about the arbitrary limitations I put on my business. Over time, I’ve created subconscious speed limits for myself, lines I don’t cross. Why? I’m not sure anymore. If you’ve set arbitrary speed limits in your business, maybe now’s a good time to evaluate why you put them there and whether they have helped or hindered your progress as an entreprenuer.

I know I will.

If he were a Bond villain, they’d probably call him “Perfecto,” the criminal so devious, he would never make a move until he had everything arranged just right. Unfortunately though, Perfecto could never make it into any of the films; he’s always too busy tinkering to make a real move.

Perfectionism is a REAL problem for entrepreneurs, especially first-timers. We all want our business launch to be absolutely spectacular, we want it to be — well — perfect. The problem is that we’re willing to keep our business in the workshop, hidden from the eyes of the public, until that magical moment of perfection has finally arrived.

But who are we achieving perfection for? Our customers? Sadly, no. The longer you keep a project to yourself, the more time that passes before a real customer sees anything and the more time that passes before you can gather any meaningful feedback as a business owner. The truth is that when you keep a business on the shelf while you wait for them to be perfect, the only person you’re trying to please is yourself.

There is absolutely no shame in putting something out there before it’s completely ready for prime time. Google does it all the time, which is why so many of their apps and services come with the “BETA” mark next to the logo… Google wants you to enjoy their product while managing your expectation that it may still be buggy. It works in service businesses too; at Zero-G we took on beta clients before we even had a logo. When we did launch, we had valuable feedback and some important insight into what our customers wanted (and frankly, what their objections were).

We had technology entrepreneur David Eckoff on Gravity Free Radio last week and he had some great insights into the “perfectionism” issue that a lot of startups face. Listen here.

No, unfortunately I haven’t been secluding myself on a distant, tropical island but it’s nice to think about, right? It turns out that I have been just an AWFUL blogger this summer and it’s been a terribly long time since I posted anything. But instead of making excuses, I thought it would be fun to chronicle the things that I’ve been doing this summer instead of blogging.

The summer began with the team and I here at Zero-G wrapping up a long bidding process for a high-profile web design project for an up-and-coming cable TV station (yes, there will be more to come on this!). Winning the project required a fantastic referral from one of our favorite clients, several meetings and phone calls, a trip across the country for me and — oh yeah — beating out 25 other firms to earn the business. I’m usually a pretty humble guy and I don’t like to brag but you can’t help but feel validated as a business owner when your hard work is rewarded and when, even after interviewing two dozen candidates, a client feels that you really are the best vendor out there.

This summer, we also became agency of record for NFCC (North Fulton Community Charities), a group that has been helping feed, clothe and otherwise care for the needy here in our community north of Atlanta. For the last two months we have been engaged in a complete overhaul of that organization’s branding, web site and marketing materials, top to bottom. Our work for NFCC will be unveiled this coming September and our team is extremely excited.

In the middle of all this, working with our other clients and bidding on other new business opportunities, Frost and I also wrote a book, which will be available next month on our web site and on Amazon.com. As always, we’ve also been hosting some terrific guests on Gravity Free Radio. Our interview with Scott Allen, author of The Virtual Handshake, is a must-listen for anyone looking to get involved with social media, by the way.

I’ll be a better blogger again, I promise

We were talking to David Meerman Scott — author of World Wide Rave — on our radio show this morning and he has an unusual perspective on distributing content online. When offering an ebook or a white paper, most marketers would tell you to offer your content in exchange for an email address or other personal information. The rationale is, of course, that a business owner should be able to A) determine who is downloading their valuable content and B) have the ability to follow up with that individual afterward.

Scott didn’t think so. In his experience, he claimed that allowing site visitors to download the paper without providing any personal information would increase the interest and readership of the content several times over.

So what’s more valuable? The information you get from the people who download your content online or the much larger readership that you may be missing out on because you are asking for information?

We’ve decided to make ourselves guinea pigs in this experiment. For the first time, our white papers are available with no strings or required information to provide. You can find them here:

• 8 Common Small Business Web Design Pitfalls (+ how to avoid them!)
• 10 Steps Towards an Effective Small Business Marketing Plan
• What to Look for When You’re Hiring a Design Firm

For the next few months we’ll be openly reporting on how these papers do in terms of any increase in downloads and whether or not we see our online leads diminish as a result of this. Stay tuned, this should be interesting!

We joked on the radio show a couple of weeks ago that we might need to implement some kind of “swear jar” to keep us from talking about social media. But let’s face it, this topic is everywhere and it pops up in discussions constantly. Over the last week though, the big concern that a few of our clients have raised is around how social media strategies can be implemented in their organizations without exposing too much — especially when it comes to the personal lives of their employees.

The idea that a company’s clients or partners could be friending/following/linking with its employees is a frightening prospect for many business owners. After all, we can’t control our employees online like we can in the office… Even though enough precedent has been set, most folks aren’t concerned about disciplinary action at work when they go online and spout off abut their political views or post weekend party pics or inappropriate cartoons. So what do you do and how do you approach social media, if at all?

Here are three realities that we all need to deal with in this new atmosphere of openness that social media and the Internet have conspired to create:

1. Any expectation we might have had previously about a clean “separation” of our personal and professional lives is gone. We used to be able to compartmentalize these things fairly easily, but social media has completely shattered that. Some would argue that it’s made us all more whole and more human in a lot of ways as it allows you to add a lot of dimension to your relationships, but this is exactly what scares so many employers. The people who connect with you online have the opportunity to learn a LOT about you and very quickly. Be prepared for that.

2. The online “bond” between your company and your employees already exists as soon as someone self-identifies themselves as an employee online — and keep in mind that many social media platforms encourage users to add their current and past employers to their profiles. Bottom line? This WILL happen. Expect that over time a large number of your employees, both present and past, will have your firm’s name on their profile and expect that you will be permanently linked, even after that employee moves on.

3. Your company is going to have a presence on social media whether you want it to or not. The toothpaste is out of the tube so to speak and it’s never going back in. Your only two choices are to A) participate or B) try to ignore it. If you’re wondering, B is not a smart choice. Even if you aren’t thrilled with the idea of trying to use social media in your business, at least participation gives you the opportunity to influence what is being said about you.

Hopefully we all understand that we’re all in this social media thing whether we like it or not… So how can our businesses participate without the risk of being embarrassed by our employees? We can’t. Unfortunately, the risk will always be there. But at the same time, the risk has also always been there that our employees might embarrass us at meetings, sales calls, trade shows, networking events, via email and over the phone. When these situations occur, managers tend to use them as opportunities for coaching and professional development unless disciplinary action is required. Social media is no different.

As business owners sit squeamishly, wondering how long it’s going to be before this social media business leaps up and bites them,a lot of us tend to forget a simple truth about people: they are ruled by self-interest. Ultimately, this is your only and most powerful defense against social media transgressions. It’s in your employees’ self-interest to behave appropriately online. The problem is that not many have taken the time to consider the larger implications of who they associate with on Twitter or what kinds of pictures they post on Facebook. Nobody has outlined expectations of professionalism or given them a friendly heads up that — if they aren’t careful — their social media activities could cost them their job or help prevent them from getting another in the future.

For many of us, I know, this is just common sense. But now there’s a younger generation that grew up into MySpace and Facebook the way myself and a lot of other late Gen X’ers grew up into email. We’ve got young professionals that have been managing profiles on sites like these since they entered college — or perhaps longer if they were early blogging adopters. These young whippersnappers probably don’t understand the traditional separation of personal and professional because they never experienced it. The best way, in my opinion, to ensure a seamless and relatively surprise-free entry into social media is to talk about it and try to prepare employees for it, just as you would prepare them for a big meeting or a trade show. And if things don’t go as planned, a conversation needs to be had.

Social media is today what email was 15 years ago — a technology that’s cutting edge (albeit overhyped), heavily consumed by young people and EVERY DAY being adopted by businesses in greater numbers. Your firm NEEDS to particpate or be left behind. Don’t let the risk of being embarrassed by your team be the excuse that keeps you on the sidelines.

We also had a great discusssion on these topics on Gravity Free Radio this week. You can find the podcast here.