Road Block
Having done corporate social media from both sides of the table now, I can tell you that agencies can do more damage in the long term even while they provide short term value. This is especially true in social media.
I remember as a kid, when my mom was a secretary, she would *type* inner-office memo’s on triplicate paper. Place one copy in a manila envelope and then stick that in an outbox. A mail clerk would come and pick that up, take that to a mail room and sort it. Eventually that memo got delivered to the recipient in the same building.
This was the 80′s and this is the environment our current business organizational structure was developed in.
As companies engage in social media the biggest change that needs to happen is inside the walls of the company.
This is the #1 reason I hate ghost blogging and ghost tweeting. If agencies stand between the company and the customer the organization as a whole will never be able to make the cultural and structural changes it needs to in order to stay relevant and competitive.
What is the role of an agency in social media?
This then begs the question: What is the role of an agency in social media?
An agency’s role in social media is to help their clients scale: I see 3 different roles agencies play to make this happen:
- Strategy and Consulting
- Filtering and Flagging
- Content, Content, Content
Strategy and Consulting
This is both the upfront work of strategy development as well as the ongoing guidance. Something agencies seem to have forgotten how to do is the role of trend watchers. It’s equally important that agencies have people out front watching for what’s next. Even the agencies that do this often fail to filter it down to the account level.
I would also add to this bucket the huge role of process development. This space is new and there are a lot of details to work out.
Flagging and Filtering
This is the role of watching, monitoring and measuring conversations to bring the more relevant ones to the clients attention. This is a huge piece of the scale issue. This also speaks to the role of “community manager.” I would just caution again that this is the place where agencies stand the biggest risk of getting in their clients’ way.
Don’t filter too much and if you do engage on behalf of a client do so with complete transparency.
Content, Content, Content
This piece should be easy for agencies to grasp because for the mast part this is what most of them are already doing. However they need to not just create expensive flashy content, they also need to train clients how to create their own content, especially for use in blogs and social networks. Sometimes the best content has the lowest production value.
I worry as I watch agencies try to add value and meet all of their clients’ needs that by doing so they create clients unable to function on their own. Maybe to some they see this as a good thing as it ensures the clients will always need them. To me it’s a sure way to end up with an irrelevant client that is eventually doomed to extinction.
Photo credit: Mozambique - Moments
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