Social Media Savvy is a Cheap Commodity

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Breath easier agency creatives, business consultants, and lawyers. You are not getting left behind in the age of the social web. You might be noticing that those around you, offline and online are quickly growing their knowledge in the realm of "social media" and perhaps you're even nervous that your skills and business are going to be obsolete by the emerging group of social media gurus, experts, and so on.

Don't be worried. There is a unique difference between the skills of a such a person focused on social media strategy and yours: The skills required for your job cannot be googled. 

Now please don't take the above as a free pass to not get yourself educated on new technology, social/cultural implications of new media, and evolving business models. It is absolutely in your best interest to jump into these subject immediately so you know what they know (they = social media experts).

Trust me though, it is much easier for you to learn what "THEY" do versus "THEM" learning what you do. Take the knowledge you build (it's a relatively cheap commodity care of your friends at Google and the hundreds of blogs coveraging the topic of social media for free) and apply it to your own business. Improve facets of your company or your specific talents with the tools you have now at  your disposal, and then continue to use the hard earned skills of creativity, business strategy, financial planning, legal experience, etc that built your success in the first place.

Lastly, I want to highlight the brilliant individuals who compose the emerging practices at advertising/pr/design agencies who are helping drive brands into the future. This is not a shot at you nor a question of your value. You are the ones who have grown with brands, felt their legal/political struggles, lived through their fluctuations in financial stability, and helped transform their infrastructure. Boosting the valuable experience you have with knowledge of the social web will only make you better equipped to strengthen your partnerships and outwit your competitors. As my title indicates, you all have access to this cheap commodity of knowledge. Take advantage of information and stay ahead of others. See how it can overlap with what you are already doing. Invent smarter and more efficient ways of delivering your value. You don't have to start building a new house from scratch, you're simply adding a garage.

Blargument: My Response to Agency vs. Inhouse

The below response (My Blargument) was originally posted on The Lost Jacket by myself in response to Stuart Foster. For the sake of ease, I wanted to have it live on my own site as well. His side of the story can be found in an older post here.

Agency vs. Inhouse (The Brand Itself) will comprise the main portion of our blargument. I (Len Kendall) work for a digital agency in Chicago, Stuart Foster works for Stuart Foster...an “enterprising young gentleman full of spunk, determination, and ridiculousness” as he so modestly puts it. Needless to say, we come from different worlds of thought in terms of marketing. I come from a marketing/sales program at Purdue University combined with a 4 year stint in the collegiate newspaper business. That was followed up by media planning/buying for a large brand at a media agency which then eventually led to my current position at Critical Mass. In other words, unlike Stu, my marketing background is very much one that favors the “agency” side of the business vs. “Inhouse” (Stu’s end of the spectrum).

• Twitter/blogging via proxy: One of the hot button issues, that seems to always come up in a marketing agency vs. inhouse debate is the proxy issue. Particularly the ability of a third party intermediary to write/tweet for c-level executives. An agency is hired for many reasons. To run search programs, plan media, design brand messaging, essentially to know a brand’s identity and speak on its behalf while leveraging the background knowledge of past multi-categorical experience. An agency is trusted with holistic marketing efforts and just because twitter is a more personal channel, doesn’t mean that a 3rd party cannot use that distribution channel optimally as well. An agency is hired to have a deep understanding of a specific consumer and then subsequently use the appropriate channel to engage with that consume. If Twitter is that channel, then a digital agency should absolutely have the talent to speak passionately on a brand’s behalf.

• Complete Transparency: Does an agency have complete transparency? If it can is it in the best interests of their various clients? The level of transparency and openness depends largely on the brand and its comfort level in the various communication channels that currently exist. A person who works for a Fortune 500 brand can be just as hesitant with their words as someone on the agency side. The same potential lawsuits can happen. The same community uproar can occur. The companies that are really starting to understand social media are the same ones who also will be taking risks and letting people on all ends of their network (whether in-house or their partner agencies) use consumer touch points without a lawyer standing by to review every communication. In terms of immediacies and being connected to news around a brand, this again is a variable situation. Ideally (and often the case) agency partners know a brand the same as or better than those on the brand side. They should be monitoring their brand closely and working with their counterpart inhouse so that proper communications can be seeded and responded to.

• Speed: Who is going to be able to answer a question on Twitter about your product more effectively? An agency partner or a person who works with the product everyday and sees it from the inside out. This again varies largely based on the size of the company. An inhouse partner who works in the “marketing department” isn’t going to have all that much more knowledge than a 3rd party that is dedicated to the business. The inhouse partner is there to manage the agency and help brief them on what the goals are for particular campaigns and products. Unless we’re at a point where product managers and marketing leads are the same person, I don’t see a clear advantage in the speed department. An agency should be seen as an extension of the brand and not a vendor. They should have the same knowledge of the product they are representing as someone inhouse, but also have the ability to leverage the knowledge of the other product categories their agency has the privilege of representing.

• Dedicated Brand Manager: This is a challenge on both sides of the argument. In either case, a brand takes a risk when putting their name in the hands of one person. That brand manager is going to be building relationships and a deep understanding of a product during their tenure. As neutral as that person may try to be, they are inevitably going to become a face for your brand. (An excellent post on Logic + Emotion speaks to this reality.) But as brands become more human, this is going to have to become an acceptable risk. You need PEOPLE, to sell to PEOPLE. Whether those talented individuals come from inhouse or a 3rd party shouldn’t matter as long as they are doing it right.

In the cyclical world of marketing, the idea of having multiple silos is certainly an unpopular one. Bundling your efforts is the “soup du jour” of marketing and one that I absolutely agree with. In a perfect world an agency is just another department in the marketing group of a brand. They are the people who were hired for their insight, their range of experience in consumer brands, and their relationship building. They are the people that quite often end up working on the “brand side” because of all those aforementioned qualities. Individuals like Stu make excellent points in terms of building a community directly with your consumers. Why have someone else do something that you can do better yourself? But the landscape of marketing currently lends itself to agencies being able to produce creative more efficiently, implement media buys at better rates, and hire extremely diverse talent. Agencies are very effectively and cost efficiently handling a large chunk of brand’s marketing mix and to take away a piece of that puzzle (brand management) would be detrimental to all parties as it once again creates silos that both parties seek to eliminate.