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TO BE SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS, MUST AGENCIES PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH?

November 16, 2009 by Jason  
Filed under FEATURED, MICRO DEBATE: BRANDING & MARKETING

10 Comments

POSITION: NOT NECESSARILY

Chances are you’ve never seen a TV commercial for an advertising agency, because ad agencies don’t use that medium to promote themselves. It’s not the most effective way for them to reach their target market. But that hasn’t prevented millions of brands from trusting agencies to develop effective TV spots.

Same is true for social media. The fact that TV is mass media and SM is one-to-one doesn’t change my basic point: using a tool or service for yourself isn’t the only (or best) way of demonstrating capability.

For many agencies, a profitable year simply means winning a handful of new accounts within a limited geographic area. Their strategy may not require an aggressive social media effort, but rather a more localized, targeted one. But that hardly means they wouldn’t be capable of executing a social media campaign for their clients.

The mark of a good agency is the ability to match strategy with need. Every client, audience and goal is different, and cookie-cutters simply don’t work in marketing. Using any tool, including social media, simply because it’s a service that they sell doesn’t demonstrate that the agency “gets” it – it simply demonstrates what they don’t get: customization based on need.

POSITION: ABSOLUTELY

“Social is like sex. It’s fun to talk about and read about, but you can’t truly comprehend unless you do it.”

Forrester’s CEO George Colony makes my point pretty succinctly: if you are not engaging in social media, you just don’t “get it.”  Thus I have a hard time believing an agency that doesn’t engage in any kind of social media can call themselves an expert and provide the best possible advice for their clients.

The very nature of being involved in a social community means that you are willing to engage with that community, share ideas and learn from the members.  A good marketer takes that learned knowledge and crafts a unique campaign based on community insights, trends, and general behavior patterns they have witnessed.

If that insight is lacking what happens? The agency continues to develop campaigns that have an average return of 54 cents on the dollar and only 14 percent of consumers trust.

Social media presents a new frontier for marketers; one with its own set of challenges and unique rules.  Interaction is the driving force of social networks, and if you don’t practice that, how can you preach it?

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TO BE SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS, MUST AGENCIES PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH?

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10 Responses to “TO BE SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS, MUST AGENCIES PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH?”
  1. wes unruh says:
    November 16, 2009 at 8:46 pm

    social media requires an embedded presence. sockpuppets, avatars, and ghostwriters are essential for any social media project – one doesn’t need be entirely transparent to be successful, just generate a public space for play to form around an image that exists in an augmented and transmedia narrative

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  2. Ryan Rancatore says:
    November 17, 2009 at 5:10 pm

    I voted for Nicole’s argument, although I think Jason makes a pretty decent case. Social media has one word in it that is so, so, SO key: “social”. Many brands today have social media presences that frankly aren’t social in the least bit. Why? Because the people at the helm (client-side or agency) don’t have REAL social media experience…engaging, interacting, etc.

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  3. Jeff Swanson says:
    November 18, 2009 at 10:14 am

    I have to give this one to Jason. The main reason being that not all social media channels are appropriate for everyone. Therefore, there are channels that agencies shouldn’t be on that my serve their clients well.

    They still need to be experts and understand the channel, but they don’t have to necessarily participate in it. And, the fact that you are part of a social media channel doesn’t make you an expert, anyway. Understanding it does. You can be a hippocrate and still make a valid point.

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  4. Danielle Douglas says:
    November 18, 2009 at 11:44 am

    My vote is for Jason. Jeff Swanson’s comments were right on target! No need to add anything, well said!

    Reply
  5. Chris Burke says:
    November 20, 2009 at 9:06 am

    I have to go with Nicole on this one. Social media offers both agencies and clients a new channel to both target and engage in discussions with potential customers. For business-to-business agencies, social media can be a tool for public relations and for new business development. For clients, the potential is even greater; but with fewer marketing communications positions and tighter budgets, clients are looking to their agencies to provide the value proposition for social media. And to do that effectively, you have to engage in it to understand it.

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  1. uberVU - social comments says:
    November 16, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by RyanRancatore: Micro-Debate: Can Marketing agencies not engaged in social media REALLY call themselves social media experts? http://bit.ly/TqqhS...

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  2. rancatore says:
    March 30, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    [...] says: October 17, 2009 at 3:05 pm. Thought provoking stuff, Bret. I see a lot of people making …TO BE SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS, MUST AGENCIES PRACTICE WHAT THEY …Ryan Rancatore says: November 17, 2009 at 5:10 pm. I voted for Nicole's argument, although … Name [...]

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