Social Media Marketing has been called many things. The "future of online interaction", the "new search", the "most important development in human history since the harnessing of fire".

Ok, I’ll admit, I may have made the last one up, but if you listen to the social media "gurus", what you’ll hear isn’t that far away from my joke. Thousands of bloggers, Facebook users and members of the Twitterati market themselves as social media experts who’ll use their wealth of experience to ensure that your business connects to the right people.

But can they live up to that promise? Should you be handling your social media reins to an online expert, or staying in the saddle yourself? For the vast majority of businesses, the second answer is the correct one. And here’s why.

Are there any Social Media experts?

As mentioned above, there are thousands of people claiming to be social media experts, and judging from their follower counts, they seem to know their stuff. But scratch the surface, and you’ll learn some things you didn’t expect.

Firstly, the experts and gurus tend to be early adopters. This lends them some additional authority on social media sites, but doesn’t prove their credentials in any real way. Signing up to Twitter a few months after launch seems to demonstrate expertise, but when you balance it our against the same user’s abandoned Yahoo Meme account, their astounding foresight doesn’t seem so impressive.

Secondly, many of the "experts" use a variety of unsavoury methods, equivalent to "Black Hat SEO". Just what value is there in having 15,000 followers, when most of those have been sourced through autofollowers and bots?

The majority of people claiming to be social media experts won’t be. The genuine experts out there will be experienced online marketers, known in the industry before the rise of social media sites. So if you want genuinely helpful advice, find the experts who’ve been around the block a few times.

Do you need Social Media expertise, or real business experience?

The reason your clients are looking on social media sites is that they want expert advice on your products and services. If you’ve outsourced your social media strategy to someone who knows everything about Facebook and nothing about your products, then your clients won’t get what they’re looking for.

And every social media expert that’s worth their salt will know that if you don’t give clients what they want, then all the social media expertise in the world won’t prevent disaster.

So that leaves you with two options. You either train up an expert in social media to be an expert in your field (at your expense), or you bite the bullet and jump in at the deep end yourself.

Just make sure you read up on the subject and download a few good social media guides first!