It’s becoming harder and harder to find actual experts. You know, people who base their “facts” on the truth … people who really know what they’re talking about (not just those who talk a good game).

There are countless examples of political talking heads who claim to be exprts who maybe weren’t so right after all. (Just think of all the pundits who thought Sarah Palin would help John McCain on Election Day.) I imagine by now, everyone is a little tired of politics. So, let’s look at this issue from a different standpoint. There are two examples that come to mind.

This weekend, the American Advertising Federation is holding its midyear retreat — and, as has become common practice at these kinds of events, it’s being twittered. In fact, the Ad2 Orlando chapter is twittering. I follow them on Twiter, so I can keep up on what is being said at this event. It turns out that one of the speakers at the conference is the chief creative officer at WonderGroup — an advertising agency that specializes in the buying-decision relationship between moms and kids. The speaker is apparently a so-called social media expert (even though he only has 43 followers on Twitter. To give some perspective, I have 52 and I don’t try to claim to be an expert at this stuff. My husband, who owns a social media marketing company, and really knows how to do this, has more than 400 followers. Chris Brogan, a real social media guru, has almost 20,000 followers.) Update: The speaker wasn’t positioned as a social media expert. He focused on how social media is changing the game. Sorry for the confusion — hard to tell what’s going on 1000 miles away in just 140 characters.

Anyway, this speaker was saying things that just aren’t true many people believe aren’t true about social media (like that people want brands to be their friends. Huh??) But, all these conference attendees think he’s an expert — therefore believing every word that comes out of his mouth (even though it clearly doesn’t make sense). Who proclaimed him an expert? Update: As a speaker he is perceived as an authority, so people are inclined to believe what he says, even if he offered a disclaimer about his social media expertise. Again, not there … can’t say for sure.

The notion of social media marketing is new — and there really are very few experts. Peter Shankman is probably as close as they come. Other people may have had some good results, but they’re hardly experts. It’s too new of a concept to have thousads of experts. Even though PR isn’t new, the concept of everyone being an expert is similar. Everyone claims to be PR experts, but there aren’t that many people who do it really, really well. Just about anyone can get a clip, but it’s much harder to actually shape perception (the real point of PR, for those of you who still aren’t sure what it is that I actually do for a living!)

Another real-world example: The domestic violence support group that I co-facilitate is led by a minister. She’s a very, very religious person and incorporates faith into the group discussions. One day, we somehow got on the topic of homosexual relationships. And, without even thinking twice, she said it’s a terrible sin … an abomination of God. This woman is an authoritative figure for a group of very vulnerable women. They see her as an expert. Wouldn’t it make more sense to couch her beliefs by saying it’s a sin in her opinion? Some religions are opposed to gay marriage … but there are plenty of theologins who argue for gay rights. Who’s the expert there? So much of religion is based on interpretation of the Bible. But, as a very smart preacher said, it’s important to remember that the Bible is also a set of interpretations. For example, the four apostles wrote their interpretation of events and what Jesus said. What if they interpreted something wrong?

I guess the lesson is that we all need to be careful about who we deem to be experts. Especially with the information superhighway, anyone can set up a blog and seem like an authority on some topic. But, be warned. Don’t trust everything you hear or read. Do your research before determining who to believe and who to take with a grain of salt.