Here's what I emailed in response:
A social media marketer is simply someone who uses social media tools to connect products or services with customers or audiences. There's no real reason to define it any more than the simple semantics of it all. That said, such a broad determination means you can be a social media marketer and not know it. You can also not use the tools correctly or not behave appropriately within communities around the tools and market poorly.
So, in order to be a good social media marketer, in my opinion, you should understand the tools you're using and the communities to which you are marketing, be they ones that surround the tool itself (Twitter users) or subject matters within a certain tool (FriendFeed room about, say, cell phones.). Some communities are very open to marketers being there and contributing to the conversation. Others aren't. As long as you earn your keep, contribute meaningfully to the community and gain the level of trust they need to allow you to seed your own messages or pitch your own products or services, and you don't violate their trust, you're marketing via social media successfully.
No, it's still not a clear picture. People are different, communities are different and marketers/brands are different. As a result, the acceptance or success of a social media marketer will vary in different communities, using different tools and for different brands. But those basic rules will apply everywhere social media and marketing collide.
My question to you is what would you add? Take away? Clarify?
What is a social media marketer?
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Social Media Explorer is just that -- a blog dedicated to exploring social media, from best practices to ethics, from case studies to tools. It is authored by Jason Falls, who holds the title of Social Media Explorer at Doe-Anderson, the fifth-oldest advertising agency in the U.S. and brand enthusiasm experts.