Who owns social media?
February 29th, 2008 by Hugh KennedyOur friends at Cymfony, now TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony (proving a theory of mine that all CGM companies will ultimately be acquired) have just released a new survey of 60 marketers at companies in North America, France, and the U.K.. The report concludes that when it comes to social media, marketing agencies are “ill equipped,” to quote AdWeek and “don’t get it,” to quote the survey report.
The report brings back the words of an AT&T executive who is a “friend of the agency,” as the saying goes. In essence, she said that “agencies talk a good game about integrating print and online, but I’ve been hearing it for years and I just don’t see it.” Well, she used more PG-13 language than that, but you hear the same kind of frustration as we’re now hearing about social media.
Although BtoB has traditionally lagged consumer markets in marketing innovation, we find that social media provides a great opportunity to step out and “punch above your weight,” since larger companies tend to arrive at the party later. Of course, there are a few ground rules to be laid down after, to quote Jim Nail from Cymfony, we “put up a good presentation about what social media is.” In no particular order, these are:
* Just because it’s social media, it’s not free. Even a two-minute explainer-type video that you post on YouTube will cost you, regardless of whether you choose to do it in house or not. As the report notes, you need “significant” resources. And to quote someone from one of the largest interactive agencies whom I saw the other night, “If you’re not going to focus your marketing dollars online, what exactly do you intend to do with them? Direct mail drops?”
* Just because it’s social media, you can’t hang out a few good ideas and call it a program. A video gone viral is great, but what does it lead to? When they get to your site and want to learn more, how much of the brand represented in one video carries over? If it’s not integrated, it’s fragmented. It’s a letdown. When we did a Google Earth mashup for one client that allowed programmers around the world to plot themselves if they’d downloaded the free software trial and share their thoughts with everyone else, we made sure that it was a seamless element of a larger brand experience.
* You’ve got to bring your agencies together to make a program work. Concepting and designing a blog might be the role of an agency, but a PR firm is much better suited to work with the client team to generate the regular bolus of content that you need to stay fresh and relevant.
* Social media programs fall apart not based on money, but based on time. Everyone wants their executives and thought leaders to blog, to appear in videos, to interact with customers, to give customers or employees the talking stick and show why they’re net promoters or true believers (or not). But unless they’re prepared to add a new responsibility to their job description, which typically means delegating another one, a social media program will start with excitement and then flounder. We used to see it all the time with corporate newsletters (remember those?). The first issue would come out to great excitement, and then the second issue was two weeks late…and then, if there weren’t consistent support and resources at hand, the third one would remain forever fossilized in the amber of a Word outline.
As a colleague at a social media specialist said to me recently, “Clients need to think of social media as an extension, not a replacement, of what they’re doing. Otherwise they get too freaked out by it.”
That’s the final point. You can wade into the water. You don’t have to dive off the high board to impress everyone. Just don’t let the form get out in front of your content.