We’re sharing a client with The Advance Guard for the first time and I am psyched to work with C.C. Chapman, whom I met in-person for the first time this week. (Yes, he’s as warm, smart and genuine as you suspected.)
Catching up prior to our client’s arrival, talking about our respective sales pipelines, current projects, and all that jazz, C.C. and I both noted that not all clients were going to fit well in the Social Media era. Ideal clients – great products, savvy contacts – are actually kinda’ rare.
And as PR becomes more transparent, this becomes a risk factor for agencies. An agency’s brand will be increasingly tied to its clients’. This was always the case at some level – reputations are built on good work – but, never more so than in today’s broadband, 24/7, Google-monitored world.
So consultants like The Advance Guard, SHIFT, et al., are putting their own reputations on the line as they engage with, and for, their clients. Brands are intermingling: our individual brands, our company brands, our clients’ brands. The bigger we get, the more transparent we get, the more likely it becomes that we’ll take a reputational hit due to a client’s SNAFU.
C.C. sagely summed it up: “There will be dogs.”
It’s a risk we must take. Except in extreme cases, no service provider I know of can afford to turn away a prospective client. If the client’s not doing anything illegal or unethical, and they will pay for your counsel and connections (which could actually improve the product) … well, “It may be the future but you still gotta eat.”
P.S. – For the record, the client that C.C. and I are working on is one of the cool ones, thankfully!
In keeping with his inclusive turn of mind, Rohit doesn’t think of this as the launch of a book, so much as the start of a conversation.
Accordingly, he’s asked us to ask him up-to 5 questions that he promises to answer on Friday. (Tomorrow will be a long day for Rohit!)
Riffing on his concept, I asked some of the Twitterati to join the fun. Below are four of the responses (I’ve reserved the 5th question for myself, below.)
So, Rohit? We have some questions for ya:
briguyblock@TDefren Ask how a company bests selects leaders and idea people to define a company's archetype?
Ronna@TDefren Q for Rohit: Multiple personalities are a fact of corporate life - how do you balance them for the sake of corps & customers?
KyleFlaherty@TDefren What signs should an established brand look for to signal they need to shift in order to 'rediscover their soul'?
cbensen@TDefren What is the single most important thing you can do to give your brand personality?
These are good questions. Kyle Flaherty, in particular, raises an interesting quandary: what signals should a C-suite executive look for, internally, as evidence that the culture is ready to shift towards a new openness?
And, Rohit, here’s question #5: How the heck did you manage to write a book, grow your family, serve as a lecturer at a zillion conferences, deal with clients, blog (of course), and generate almost 500 tweets in just the last few months alone? What suffers the most, in such flurries of activity?
Two experiences in the past 2 days have spurred this post.
This morning I spent a solid 30 minutes on the My Starbucks Idea site. I discovered it via Shel Holtz, who reminds us that this is a much-welcomed copy of Dell’s IdeaStorm site. The concept is to use a Digg-like voting system to let folks proffer and vote on each other’s ideas about how to improve the Starbucks Experience.
I spend a lot of time in Starbucks. Wherever I go, there they are; the coffee’s consistently good; it’s a convenient place for a quick meeting. My wife is a regular, too. I shudder to think how much of our disposable income is devoted to the Seattle giant…
But by the same token, this “investment” motivates me to want to make Starbucks even better.
As a consumer, I am happy to tell a company “how to get better” if they give me a neat, simple way to do so – and, in particular, if I think there’s a decent chance that “my voice will be heard.”
The 2nd experience came during a meeting with a national theater chain. The get-together was ostensibly about Social Media and PR concepts, but in the course of the conversation I found myself ranting (productively/constructively) about simple things that could be done to improve the basic experience.
For example, as the parent of teenagers it’s often my job to idle in the car until the movie lets out… if Yahoo Movies says the movie is 110 minutes, I show up ~110 minutes after the show was slated to start – and invariably wind up waiting for 5 – 15 minutes because the stated showtimes & duration don’t account for the previews.
“Why not find a way to let people know when they’ll actually be exiting the theater?” I asked our hosts. “As a parent, you’ll save me gas, boredom, frustration (and WORRY! – if the kids are let out 15 minutes ‘late,’ I am freaking out).”
This silly suggestion elicited a bemused but grateful “hmmm.” They even wrote it down! Victory!
Reflecting on the satisfaction I felt when I saw those pens put to paper; and on the sense of empowerment I experienced at My Starbucks Idea, I was reminded that everyone – everyone! – wears an invisible placard around their neck that reads, “Make Me Feel Important.”
The brands that empower consumers to feel important and impactful are the brands I expect to win in the long-term.
Among the questions I hear all the time is, “Why should we hire an agency, versus handle all communications in-house?”
This one comes up more often than usual thanks to the rise of the blogosphere. Smart clients understand that they may need to take a more personal, active role in their communications to the outside world. While that is true, agencies can facilitate that process (big-time), and anyway, there are also other great reasons to consider outside assistance.
Here’s one of ‘em…
I participated in a brainstorming session the other day, in which a broad cross-section of SHIFT employees were engaged in generating ideas for a prospective client. In the course of the event, it occured to me just how much value these sessions create.
First of all, from a purely monetary perspective, a solid 90 minutes’ worth of time was being contributed. Thinking about the billing rates of all the folks in the room – which ranged from approximately $80 to $250 per hour – we probably spent a couple of thousand dollars, easy.
Now consider the wide range of experiences brought to bear. Around the same table: freshly-minted college graduates, a.k.a., the Facebookers; media specialists; mid-career executives, battle-scarred but young and vigorous; writers and graphic artists; and of course, the grizzled gray-bearded veteran (sigh – that’d be me).
The Facebookers bring their enthusiasm and “why not??” attitude, as well as special insights into how-to reach their peers. The media specialists will know which ideas they can “sell” to the mainstream media and blogosphere. The executives will sense which ideas will play well in the prospect’s mind. The writers and graphic artists think about whimsical ways to “package” the concepts. (The grizzled gray-beard brings his brain, pickled in a jar. He lobs in a decent idea when he can.)
The best part? NONE of those people know very much about the prospect. At best, we were able to get 30 minutes’ worth of direct input; we looked at their site, and researched the competitive landscape.
We know enough to be dangerous.
And that’s the “beauty” part. As outside consultants, we care not a whit for the prospective client’s internal politics or entrenched histories. We get to create ideas based on a snapshot in time.
Because the narrative we’ll help craft is ultimately intended for external audiences, we’re well equipped to consider what story we’d tell, based on what we know the rest of the outside world is already thinking. We’re in the same boat as the rest of the spectators.
We try to bring the same process to the brainstorming sessions we conduct on behalf of existing clients. We do this every 6 months, for almost every client. The account team will present their client scenario to a larger group of their peers: “here’s what the client does, here’s how the program’s going; here are the challenges so far.” With just that little bit of data, we’re off to the races, ginning up brand-new campaign concepts. The account team on-the-case tend to sigh with gratitude by the end: the fuel tank has been re-filled!
Agencies live and die based on the strength of their ideas. That creative muscle is excercised each day. That’s the kind of muscle most companies need, to push them to the next level.
Social Media Engagement Turns Lemons into Lemonade
Try as we might, we just can’t get Gina Trapani at LifeHacker to write about our clients at NEAT Receipts. Even though she often writes about “getting organized,” we haven’t cracked the code yet.
The latest shut-out came in December of 2007, when Gina asked her readers, “How do you organize your tax receipts?” Since Gina wanted her readers’ input, it’s arguable that NEAT Receipts “deserved” a mention here, but keep in mind that this was just the latest in a string of defeats…
This time around, we decided to surrender: Gina clearly didn’t want to hear from the PR crowd. But, we asked one of our our client contacts to get involved in the Comments section of the December post. In the comment, our client identified her affiliation and briefly outlined how NEAT Receipts has helped its customers at tax time.
As we monitored for any reaction to our client’s comment, we soon noted a follow-up comment by Justin Martin, a writer for FORTUNE Small Business. Justin seemed intrigued by the many suggestions of LifeHacker’s readers. When we called on him, Justin remembered our client’s comment at the LifeHacker blog and readily set-up an appointment with our NEAT Receipts contacts.
We’d still love to convince Ms. Trapani to give NEAT Receipts a whirl, of course. In the meantime, it’s nice to be able to point all of our clients to a prime example of the benefits of enagagement in the blogosphere.
Most of us are not rich. I do pretty well, but I am not rich. Most of us play the old, “If I won the lottery” mindgame, eh? I do, too.
What would be so different about your life if you were rich?
It would certainly be nice to NOT worry about money, to NOT worry about paying for the kids’ education or for your own eldercare. It would be nice to take luxury vacations. It would be nice to live in your “dream home.”
But unless you become outrageously wealthy, think about all the things that WON’T change.
You won’t love your spouse any more than you do now. They won’t love you any differently, either.
You’ll still play with your kids, and you’ll still fight with your kids, and you’ll still worry about ‘em, too.
You’ll still have to make your bed every morning (yes, even in your dream home). You’ll still do the laundry. You’ll still groan about going to the gym (even if it’s now your dream gym, in your dream home).
You’ll still cut yourself shaving. You’ll still stub your toe. You’ll still get grit in your eye.
You’ll still wonder whether the contractor/plumber/electrician/landscaper is ripping you off (you might not care as much, but you’ll still wonder).
Your car will still need service. And you’ll still need to fill ‘er up (and your hands will still smell afterwards).
Your dog will still need to poop. He’ll still fling drool on the walls.
And so it goes.
Like most people, on 364 days of the year I wish I had MORE. But it’s my birthday today, and each year on this day, rather than dream about MORE, I make sure to remember that I’ve already got MORE THAN ENOUGH.
In other words, whether you’re reaching out to bloggers, consumers or mainstream media, Facebook probably should be a consideration.
However, in the case of these top-shelf business writers, you shouldn’t try to “friend” them if you don’t already have a relationship of some sort. Spam is spam, folks, whether in email or in the form of a “Super Poke.”
But let’s talk about “edgework.” Forget about the biz press. How should you reach out directly to Facebook users?
At SHIFT, one approach we’re fond of can be summed up in a few sentences:
Identify appropriate groups. This is easily accomplished via Facebook’s search engine (which, by the way, handles over 600 million searches per month!)
Are there enough members to make outreach worthwhile? Are they active? We define “active” by the frequency of new-member sign-ups, the volume and recency of discussions on the group’s Wall and Discussion Board, the volume and recency of uploads and shared posts, etc. So many Facebook Groups were started and abandoned on a lark (i.e., a waste of your time); this part is critical.
Research the Group Type. Is it an “Open Group”? If so it tends to allow for more, and more diverse, users. Closed groups tend to be insular and neutral/hostile to outsiders. Leave ‘em be.
Befriend the Admins. Too many PR pros simply join an Open Group and post their items for all its members. This is spam, in my book. We prefer to respectfully approach the Facebook Group Admins. It was their passion that started the group; they use their personal time to administer the community. Respect them like you’d respect a business reporter. For our outreach, we explain to them who we are, who we represent, what we’d like to share with their community members.
If we’ve done our job right, our content is totally appropriate for their group. We ask if we can share/post our content to the Facebook Group, and, very often, these admins either agree or even volunteer to do it for us! This latter approach not only provides instant credibility, but also means that the content is “pushed” to all Group members’ Facebook in-boxes.
Here’s a handy slide to remind you of what to look for when considering the appropriate Facebook Groups for your pitch (it’s linked to a Flickr jpeg):
If I am counting right this is the 9th installment of PR-Squared’s Social Media Tactics Series. Do you dig it? Do you digg it? (Actually, I prefer a save to Magnolia or StumbleUpon, if you care to share the love.) In any case, as always I love your feedback.
Since this week’s earlier post was so brief, I hope ya’ll don’t mind a beefier post today.
I’ve made only very minor edits to the text below, which was left as a comment to the “Battle Royale” post of last week. It spells out the Social Media Release experiments of Steve Kayser of Cincom Systems, and blogger at Riffs, Tiffs & What Ifs.
Where I felt the need to weigh-in and respond below, I do so <in a field like this one>.
Heeeeeere’s Steve Kayser:
Been experimenting with SMR's fairly aggressively. Five releases in the last couple months. Commented about some of the issues on Brian Solis' blog.
Brian’s post covers a lot of issues we're trying to figure out – tracking, measurement, value, downstream display, etc. Building data, getting comments and feedback. No problem with moderated comments here. I find the comments valuable and helpful. If, and when, I get the occasional "Richard Cranium" who blasts or attacks our company - no problem. It's a very small minority. If you have thin skin, probably not the way to go.
<I advocate for moderated comments: the idea is to open up to dialogue and – at worst – constructive critiques; I do not think it’s in a company’s best interest to allow contentious, harsh, unfair conversations in their official forum.>
<Done right, ideally, a company that opens itself up in this type of moderated forum will minimize a consumer’s desire to vent more angrily somewhere else, because they feel like they haven’t been heard by the heretofore “faceless” corporation.>
COUPLE SMR EXPERIMENTS
Had the opportunity to use two SMR's in an event we hosted. A major college MBA Business Plan Competition with 14 colleges (sorta like the NCAA tourney). The release content was not great … but functional. Since the opportunity was there, we decided to push the limits for the multimedia portion of one of the news release.
1st Release
The announcement of the contest topped around 6,300 links in the first 24 hrs as tracked in the Marketwire PRstats™ - described as “the current number of locations this press release listed in.” One of our earlier SMR's topped 19,000 links... bloggers drove that.
Question is, what value do you attribute to that number? How do you get your arms around it to measure and analyze? It's impressive looking. No doubt. And it's dynamic. Changes every hour. But eventually we need to translate that into some action that moves the value needle. For us, in the complex B2B sales environment, that means moves the buyer committees, media or analysts to action. The trifecta would be all three.
<Amen. For my part, I see an intrinsic value to those links, as it speaks to the overall # of “seeds” of the news across the web. BUT, I think companies should care far more for actual “coverage,” i.e., not just links to releases but original writing/analysis based on the news release.>
Both releases were displayed on CNN,CNBC, MSNBC and all that - but they mangle the display and formatting. Which negates the value and utility. Why do it if it gets trashed? That's what testing is for though. To see what happens and how best to deal with it. Right now I know one thing. You control the display of the release only on your own site. Or your distribution vendor's site. If you can get them to display it the way you create it. Although I will say Yahoo does a pretty good job of displaying some of the multi-media elements.
<I agree with this; the “downstream issue” is troubling. That’s why we often advocate putting out a release that points to a “social media version” on the corporate website.>
<I’ve also had wire service reps suggest doing an SEM campaign for an SMR – as Shannon Whitley suggested with his brilliant NewsAds concept – such that the SMR becomes a “landing-page” for the news, where all the traffic can be directed and subsequently analyzed. It’s an interesting idea.>
2nd Release
The announcement of the winners was where we pushed the multimedia envelope. Interspersed pictures of the winners with actual video interviews of the winners - which had been shot prior to the competition.
Response was good. From the colleges, the competitors, web readers, emails - etc. All that stuff. But what surprised me most was the intense interest from professors, Venture Cap folks, bankers and judges pulling me aside, asking about the concept, the distribution, the 'How does it work?' kind of questions you get. Actually, at one point (we had releases displayed hard copy and live on a news board so the teams could see) I had several people lined up - like a tour guide.
Good test - but no media inquiries.
<Glad to see so much interest in the concept, but, hopefully the SMR format did not distract from your news!>
<More importantly, as any good SMR advocate will tell you, we’re never surprised when a release – of any type – does not generate media inquiries. Putting out a release is not a substitute for good ol’ fashioned Media Relations … With an average of THREE THOUSAND releases on the wires each day, you’d need to announce the Cure for Cancer to get inbound inquiries off a press release.>
<The rest of Steve’s comments, including well-deserved praise for PRXBuilder can be found here.>
Special thanks to Steve for his thorough write-up! I applaud his willingness to experiment. More to come on this front, folks!
Let’s face it. To many traditional marketers it sounds like New Age hokum to talk about “engagement … conversations … authenticity.”
They don’t want you talking to those mangy bloggers. They don’t want to care about Joe Sixpack. To their way of thinking, “caring about what Joe Sixpack has to say” is ultimately not a scalable model.
And they think, rightly so, that many of the traditional marketing tactics that they grew up with – such as direct mail, email marketing, newsletters, etc. - are still relevant, and will remain important for years to come.
But, ask the Boss to think about this…
Everyone trusts a peer.No one trusts a marketer.
And for the first time in modern marketing history, our peers – whether friend or enemy – can self-publish information and opinions about any company.
And, every scrap of this information (and misinformation) is instantly findable, available and shareable.
And, every scrap of this information (and misinformation) is persistent … Google has a very long memory …
It’s not about “what’s always worked,” or about “what works today.”
Sometimes it’s about being on the right side of history.
Here in the Boston area there’s a local “fast food” franchise called Boloco. I say “fast food,” because the service is fast, and the atmosphere is utilitarian, but I love Boloco. The name stands for “Boston Local Company” (there are 11 of ‘em in the area to-date), but I can’t help but hope that their concept takes off nationally.
They sell delicious, all-natural burritos. Free wifi. Awesome smoothies. Good prices. What else could a Social Media geek possibly ask for?
But what I like best about Boloco are the plastic cups. I took a picture of the cup for this blog post, but if you can’t quite make it out, the words on the cup read:
This cup grew up in Blair, Nebraska.
It’s made entirely of corn. It’s 100% compostable.
It will disappear no matter what you do with it.
Even cups matter.
These simple, clear statements make me feel good about my purchase. They make me wonder howcum Starbucks – which sells a gazillion Frappuccinos a day – can’t get all their plastic cups from the cornfields of Blair, NE. They make me remember that the fate of our planet is still an open question.
Boloco’s plastic cups make me think while I chow down a burrito.
Below I’ve done the best I can to “capture” the debate, which included folks like the brilliant-but-irascible Jeremy Pepper, media guerilla Mike Manuel, SMR guru Chris Heuer, and PR’s patron saint Shel Holtz.
First off, I hope these guys don’t mind that I post this exchange. I didn’t ask in advance, but, this entire “conversation” occured in public so I can’t imagine they’d care. More importantly, in bursts of 140 character-spaces or less, Jeremy, in particular, is able to sum up a lot of the debating points re: Social Media Releases. (I did my best to defend the concept. You’ll have to be the judge!)
Please excuse formatting glitches. I haven’t quite figured out how to cut&paste from Twitter to my blog.
IABC - with 15K members w-w - takes role in guiding standards & development of Social Media Releases. My take: http://tinyurl.com/2k4hqz
@TDefren geez, glad you don't have blinders on about SMR…
@jspepper Blinders? No. But I'm an avowed optimist.
@TDefren tomato, tomatoe, potato, potatoe, let's throw the whole thing out. you have blinders bc you have more than a vested interest.
@jspepper Vested interest? Umm, hell, yea. But it started with a genuine desire to "webify/socialize" the 100-y.o., badly-written text doc.
@TDefren badly written bc junior people aren't being trained, not bc it needed to be webified/socialized. the lack of research is my issue.
@jspepper Lay aside perennial "writing" issue. Why not democratize access to content, add/share multimedia, and even (gasp) allow comments?
@TDefren bc, at the end of the day, there have been multimedia releases already, and does everything need to be commentable?
@TDefren content has ALWAYS been accessible. it's not hard to get your hands onto a press release. Never has been.
@jspepper ALL commentable? No. Some? I think so. But it wasn't even a consideration b4. Also many wires DID have "gates" up in the past.
@TDefren as for comments, should i allow my brand to be attacked on my own site just to satisfy you?
@jspepper Always advocated MODERATED comments + if someone's bound to attack, they will. @ least on site, folks see a cool official response.
@TDefren um, all the wires had disty deals with other media. you could get them no matter what, if you wanted to.
@jspepper the dist. svs are not bound to serve up all content, esp m-m components. you need an "official" place, bro, whether wires or site.
@TDefren moderated doesn't work, bc of the immense amounts of SPAM and other issues. I know bc I have worked with Fortune 100 and it came up
@jspepper "moderated doesn't work"? so there should be no corp blogs that enable comments, either?
@TDefren i fully believe in comments, but you are adding another element of potential mess.
@jspepper Actually "comments" were not an original recommendation. But, I do think enabling comments is a good idea in SOME cases.
@TDefren that was what i ran into - that the SPAM (even with filters) becomes too much for people with other jobs beyond blogging.
@jspepper I empathize with spam issue but c'mon - we can't let that kill off SMRs, corp blogging, etc.
@jspepper If it weren't difficult, it wouldn't be worth doing.
@TDefren not saying it should, just saying it's another thing that was not thought of with the SMR. One of too many things not addressed.
@jspepper you are wrong in assuming these things were not thought of, the smr is not finished, it is being considered as we speak right here
@chrisheuer not really. i am pointing out what i think is wrong with the SMR. if these "things" are being addressed, that's great.
@chrisheuer but, give me a case study. or five. of fortune 100 companies that have used the SMR with a better response than a traditional.
@chrisheuer bc at the end of the day, what trumps both traditional and SMR is just good outreach and relationships. No contest.
@jspepper Sheesh, you MUST know that *no* SMR advocate thinks it's a "replacement" for good writing, outreach, or relationships.
@TDefren it elevates succinctness and brevity for writing, hard to say how it isn't. since it sprang from the PR is dead meme, how's it not?
@jspepper Again, the bullets were a *suggestion* - to get past the B.S., to core facts. IMHO, removing B.S. is a boon to relationship bldg
you gotta ask: can the smr accelerate actions (discovery, sharing) in ways the press release can't? finding that answer ought'a be the focus
@mmanuel, @jspepper I don't disagree with that. My *guess* is that yes, SMRs *can* accelerate discovery/sharing. It's *still early.*
@mmanuel Finding the answer ought to be A focus, not THE. Several areas of focus!
@shel i'm not anti-smr, just anti-smr as the only solution to this problem...i want to experiment more, see more experimentation
@mmanuel don't look behind the curtain. there's nothing behind the curtain. ignore the man behind the curtain.
To sum up, if I may attempt it: this idea of the SMR is just under 2 years old. It’s up against a 100–year old format. It’s going to take several years’ worth of time and experimentation before the PR industry can make a sound judgment on the SMR’s merits.
One of the points Mike Manuel raised a little later on (via Twitter) was whether “failure (of the SMR idea) was an option?” Of course it’s an option, in fact given the odds, I daresay failure is a likelihood!
But, I think the format deserves a fair shake – a “willing suspension of disbelief” – and I’ll continue to advocate for the SMR, not just because I have a “vested interest” but because I am a True Believer. Ye Olde Press Release no longer does what it’s supposed to do: deliver accurate content in a believable, accessible way. To me the SMR is, if anything, a return to first principles.
IABC To Take Leadership Role with Social Media Releases
Today it was announced that the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) will take a leadership role in furthering the development and adoption of Social Media Releases.
The existing Social Media Release Working Group was a loose collection of SMR advocates, each of whom found their good intentions stymied by the enormity of the task of furthering the SMR’s evolution (i.e., they have day jobs). But the IABC is a network of communication professionals with more than 15,000 members in 70 countries and 100 chapters worldwide. Which means that they just may have the clout, commitment and connections to truly “move the ball downfield.”
“The SMR is a catalyst for not only providing a new tool to share news, information and content, but also creating a forum to discuss how to improve press releases in general.
“The whole point of this working group and aligning with the IABC is to create an official standard and process that the entire industry can understand and support, from creation to distribution to building stories.”
However, the IABC’s active advocacy of an SMR standard implies that there will BE a standard; there will BE a future. The SMR concept clearly has legs.
What does this mean to me, personally, in terms of my previously announced plans to unveil a “version 2.0” of our original template?
First off, I already have a “1.5” template that advances the current SHIFT template, but, personally I am not happy with incrementalism. I am hoping to spiff it up even more, and debut a true “2.0” version sometime this Spring. (If you are a total SMR geek and want to see the “1.5” template that now languishes on my hard drive, lemme know.)
As a part of the IABC Working Group, I will proffer these efforts to the IABC team, for consideration as part of the standard-making process. Some of the ideas will make the cut, some won’t - but given the high caliber of my fellow Working Group members (many of whom are listed in IABC’s announcement), I am cool with that.
Meanwhile, for what it’s worth, I just want to throw out a huge round of THANK YOU’s to Brian, for being one of the SMR’s most active and articulate defenders; to Chris Heuer, for keeping the fire lit; to Shel Holtz, for his wisdom and support throughout; to Shannon Whitley, for his indefatiguable good humor and technical prowess; and to Tom Foremski, for lighting a fire under our collective butts to stop doing the same ol’ thing. There are plenty of other folks that deserve thanks, but I can see a huge hook coming my way…
I know other bloggers are planning to write about this news. I’ll update this post periodically to highlight their efforts.
At first I became really paranoid when I read about the TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony poll of more than 60 worldwide marketers, who basically suggested, "Agencies don't get it."
“Jim Nail, chief marketing and strategy officer at TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony, said frustration from clients surveyed…was across the board.
“You get the sense that agencies talk a good game,” he said. “They put up a good presentation about what social media is, but when you get to implementing campaigns … (agencies) are not meeting the marketers' expectations."
I like Jim Nail a lot; he is a former client and a smart sonuvagun. It was his last quote that struck me: “when you get to implementing campaigns…(agencies) are not meeting the marketers’ expectations.”
Now, it’s no doubt true that many PR & advertising agencies don’t, in fact, “get it” yet.
But it is also true that many clients don’t get it yet, either. Their agencies may not “meet expectations” because their expectations are off the mark.
In fact, even though some savvy marketers decry their agencies’ tendency to view Social Media as “yet another channel,” in my experience, many times it is the client who has unrealistic expectations about the so-called Return-On-Investment of engagement.
This is not true across the board. More and more clients and prospects understand that it’s impossible to bully your way into winning friends and influencing people; they understand the need to slow down, to listen, engage and empower their community peers.
But too many clients think about Social Media in terms of campaigns instead of long-term commitments.
Too many fail to understand that direct engagement with the community has the potential to realign their entire way of thinking & acting across the board. Too many see Marketing as being still-in-control, and use “metrics” as a way to prove it.
I don’t advocate marketing without metrics. But the rules are changing. And if not all agencies have figured that out, it’s probably also true that many marketers’ expectations have not necessarily kept pace, either.
We’re sharing a client with The Advance Guard for the first time and I am psyched to work with C.C. Chapman, whom I met in-person for the first time this week. (Yes, he’s as warm, smart and genuine as you suspected.)
The inimitable Rohit Bhargava of the 
Two experiences in the past 2 days have spurred this post. 
The 2nd experience came during a meeting with a national theater chain. The get-together was ostensibly about Social Media and PR concepts, but in the course of the conversation I found myself ranting (productively/constructively) about simple things that could be done to improve the basic experience. 
Among the questions I hear all the time is, “Why should we hire an agency, versus handle all communications in-house?” 
And that’s the “beauty” part. As outside consultants, we care not a whit for the prospective client’s internal politics or entrenched histories. We get to create ideas based on a snapshot in time. 
Try as we might, we just can’t get 
Result? Big-time 
Most of us are not rich. I do pretty well, but I am not rich. Most of us play the old, “If I won the lottery” mindgame, eh? I do, too.
One of our stars recently developed a presentation on how her team has been participating directly with consumers, on behalf of clients, via Facebook. 
Since this week’s earlier post was so brief, I hope ya’ll don’t mind a beefier post today.
Let’s face it. To many traditional marketers it sounds like New Age hokum to talk about “engagement … conversations … authenticity.”
Here in the Boston area there’s a local “fast food” franchise called 
Yesterday’s announcement about the 
Today it was announced that the International Association of Business Communicators (
At first I became really paranoid when I read about the 
Too many fail to understand that direct engagement with the community has the potential to realign their entire way of thinking & acting across the board. Too many see Marketing as being still-in-control, and use “metrics” as a way to prove it.
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