are you a one trick social media pony?

I am going to pose a question to all the social-media-marketers and social-media-experts: if social-media dried up, and all the sites went belly-up today, would you be able to get a job tomorrow? I have a feeling that many of the self-titled social media experts out there would not be able to continue in a marketing career beyond our current social boom.

There are two categories I like to assign social- media folks to. There are marketing professionals who utilize the tools social media provides, and there are one trick ponies, who don't exist outside the world of social media.

The folks in the second category may be able to get you on the front page of Reddit or Digg. They may have a huge IM army and multiple accounts and be able to leverage the various SM sites. However, do they understand marketing beyond online exposure? Could The Expert write a press release and effectively distribute it? Could The Expert write an effective, multi-faceted marketing strategy including outlets other than SM?

Here is what I am getting at: I firmly believe social media to be an effective and extremely relevant tool for marketers in today's economy. Entry barriers are relatively low, and it is relatively cost effective versus more traditional advertising. With the closing of established news outlets across the country, I believe social media will only continue to grow and evolve for the foreseeable future.

Given the pace social media is evolving, its hard to say exactly how long into the future. I would like to remind readers at this point about the dotcom bust of the early millennium. Remember all those startups with no business model that were not profitible but somehow were still trading at $60 a share? It seemed to good to last, but the money and investors poured in. It certainly proved to be too good to be sustainable.

How is the social media boom any different than the millennial dotcom boom?

Twitter, currently the fastest growing social service, has yet to unveil a concrete business model or make any money other than a few bucks for advertising in Japan. What makes us so sure that these companies will find a way to become sustainable and profitable? In the end, I don't think anyone can be certain about the longevity of social media.

If Digg dried up tomorrow, what would you do?

Would you be out of a job, or would you be agile enough to adapt to the changes? Are you a multi-faceted marketing expert, or do you just have a lot of solid accounts on social media sites?

Social media is evolving and growing at a staggering pace. Will The Expert--the one-trick-pony--be able to evolve and grow with it?