Comments on: Who Wins the Struggle for Social Media Control?

By: CJOttawa

CJOttawa — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:34:07 +0000

You wrote: “…There is too much at stake this time, and advertising is just now recovering from the industry-wide hubris that caused them to largely miss the digital wave, giving rise to hundreds of digital agencies. They won’t repeat that blunder…”
Other “big industry” has not learned from their mistakes and ARE repeating their blunders.
Why would anyone assume “big advertising” won’t repeat theirs?

By: Jason Baer

Jason Baer — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:10:00 +0000

@Beth -Thanks very much for the comment. Good stuff. Yes, I was really thinking about different external agency types, and how they are all jockeying to be the social media champion for the client.
I completely agree that the agencies that are most conversational in their approach, and not just addicted to the megaphone (regardless of format), are best positioned to lead the social media charge.
In comparison to ad agencies and digital agencies, I think PR is typically the best choice.
I essentially only consult for agencies, so I’m right in the middle of this discussion (plus, I owned an agency for 10 years). Everyone is putting their social media “packages” together, acquiring talent or training, and pitching clients. Should be interesting to see how it all turns out.

By: Beth Harte

Beth Harte — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:09:32 +0000

Jason, great post! I know you are talking about these tug of wars from, I think, an external agency or, maybe, an internal departmental perspective (it was a bit unclear), but I’d like to add a different perspective.
In my career, marcom always encompassed all these roles (clients would be internal customers)and agencies were just used for the tactical implemention (strategy was always done in house because the marketers knew the products/services/customers best).
Anyway, a while back Jason Falls wrote a post about this topic but it was marketing vs. PR. And, of course, I came down on the side of marketing (even though I am a PR practitioner too), but then after a lot of consideration I came to the conclusion, that from an internal perspective for social media to work all departments need to understand and embrace the brand first (i.e. understand that all their interactions with a customer could affect — either positively or negatively — brand experience and revenues). From that perspective it makes sense that the people that are used to having two-way conversations might become the social media owners (customer service, sales, business development, etc.) and not necessarily marketing, PR, advertising or digital folks.
That said, I think in companies where it’s the norm for marketers/PR/etc. to talk to customers, social media implementation is the next step and they will need consultants and agencies to temporarily guide them (regardless of what RL says…).
As well, I agree with you that discussions around social media will initiate boardroom discussions, conference keynotes, and merger activity in 2009. And watching it/hearing about it will be very interesting!
So, I probably have gone down a completely different path than you intended (sorry!) but I think it’s important to have an “insider’s” perspective.

By: Jason Baer

Jason Baer — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:28:36 +0000

@Stan – I agree that PR is best positioned currently, but definitely isn’t ready in most cases to do it all yet. I concur that customer service and CRM are definitely key players in any true social media effort. Just not sure they have enough power in most organizations to lead the charge – sadly.
@David – “There’s not enough money in it” is almost word for word what advertising said about online marketing circa 1998, and it’s taken them 10+ years to recover from that lack of foresight.

By: David Burn

David Burn — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:28:40 +0000

You lost me at “critically important tug of war.” There’s not enough money in it at this point for social media to be critically important to decision makers at advertising agencies.

By: Stan Magniant

Stan Magniant — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:17:01 +0000

I agree with you that PR seems to be the most legitimate to lead the charge, and I’ve been advocating this idea as the former manager of the online PR dept of a reasonably big agency in Europe. One thing keeps nagging me though, which I can’t find in your post or in the comments: scale. Yes, PR is great at managing conversations, interpersonal connections. They’re great at handling one-to-few communications, say with selected journalists or key opinion leaders. But beyond maybe a couple hundred contacts, one-to-few, becomes one-to-many communication, and the ‘relationship’ aspect gets lost in the process. Your nice peer-to-peer (sort of) relationship reverts to top-down, email blasts. Worse, PR professionals can handle good and bad relationships, but not many of them at the same time. Hence the scalability issue, best addressed by CRM and customer service (always the dark horse; don’t discount them). In the end though, we’re trying to use old paradigms to describe a new reality which will be somewhat a mix of everything. You need the strategic, relationship-building thinking of PR, the creativity of advertising, the operational capabilities of digital and a very sophisticated client to herd these cats

By: Jason Baer

Jason Baer — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:56:08 +0000

@chuynh – Thanks very much. Indeed, the intention was to paint the picture about how different types of agencies are jostling to oversee social media initiatives for their corporate clients.

By: chuynh

chuynh — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:07:15 +0000

Jason, thanks for dropping by my blog with a comment. I meant to also leave a comment here but got side tracked:)
Anyway it seems there’s some confusion about your original intended topic, that is to talk about competition between outside entities and agencies and not necessarily between groups within an organization (I think). I certainly got this sense based on the comments people left here. I know I had to go back and read your article twice. I guess it’s dangerous to skim-read as you can definitely miss stuff. Regardless, all are interesting comments and I learn a lot. Keep ‘em coming.

By: Jason Baer

Jason Baer — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:13:33 +0000

@Don – I agree that unlike almost any other form of marketing, consumers will be able to shift social media conventions to meet their own desires. That’s an exciting opportunity for us all.
@Larry – It sounds like you’re advocating for a new kind of “conversation agency” as others here have done. I don’t disagree that may be the optimal outcome, but upstart agency types don’t usually win across-the-board.
@Dale – I might argue that social media is already mainstream. More people use Facebook every month, than watch American Idol. And American Idol is rarely considered a niche player!
@Ari – Of course, the philosophy of social media is much bigger than this, which is why I so often write about strategy over tactics. But ultimately, brands large and small need to decide whether and how to get involved. That decision will be influenced inexorably by one or more of their existing agency partners, all of whom want to be able to charge for social media advice and execution in a frighteningly bad era for marketing expenditures. If you actually believe that somehow social media is immune to business influences when billions of dollars will be at stake, I’d offer that your view of the marketing world is unrealistic.
Further, because my consulting practice is primarily devoted to working with agencies to help them understand and execute social media, combined with the fact that I’ve been in the agency business for 15+ years, I naturally look at things through that prism. Your prism is based on your deep experience in government and journalism, so I can see where my capitalist leanings in this regard might be distasteful, but to suggest that because I comment on the business side of social media means I don’t understand social media is a bit much.
@RL – Very interesting comment, thank you. I’d agree that there is a type of person that gravitates toward social media, and can be effective at it. My concern is that those types of people sometimes don’t have the “pull” in an organization to align the necessary resources. Your point about ad agencies having the creative edge is right on, too.
@Kary – Bingo. It’s all about strategy. And there’s no question the lines are blurring. I would love to call it “marketing” and be done with it. But in my experience, agencies (and their clients, more importantly) don’t do that. They all want to pigeon hole one another. Easier to make sense of the maelstrom that way, although it’s a bit lazy.

By: Kary Delaria

Kary Delaria — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:50:45 +0000

Great discussion, here.
As a PR pro, I’m of course excited and a bit flattered at the idea that SM could “belong” to the PR industry due to our expertise on building relationships and generating coverage by telling the story to the right people.
However, what seems more apparent to me these days is the definition of “advertising” vs. “pr”. As SM expert David Meerman Scott points out in his writings, these lines are so blurred. If you talk to anyone in the “advertising” or “pr” industries who also has a sense of SM, their job descriptions and purpose will be relatively similar.
So, getting back to the “ownership” — I agree with comments here that say, why not just call it “marketing.” Truth is, no matter what you call it, or who owns it in your particular organization or consultant/client structure, SM falls under the whole mar/com communications umbrella. In that same vein, the idea of a “social marketing expert” seems misguided. Wouldn’t you want a “marketing expert” who understands social media?
More importantly, though, you can’t just assign it to someone and assume it’s going to take shape. The discussion needs to move away from WHO does it, to the HOW and WHY. Without first establishing a clearly defined marketing strategy, SM tactics will be haphazard and misguided.
So, my answer? Look at the whole picture. Look at your strategy. Look at what you are trying to accomplish and who you are trying to reach. Then, figure out who best to manage the task.