Comments on: The Expectation Game: Social Media Edition

By: Todd Defren

Todd Defren — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:28:18 +0000

Thanks, everyone!

Scott – haven’t seen the crayon deck, please send it along.

Jim – I take your point, esp the part about how some agencies will “default” to ideas like, “Let’s put something up on YouTube” as if that “solves” the social aspects of designing an outreach effort.

Sometimes the hardest thing for an agency to admit is that “engagement” does not REQUIRE a lot of bells and whistles, just good ol’ fashioned relationship-building.

By: Christine Campbell

Christine Campbell — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:56:17 +0000

Like you I had to take a moment to ponder this news – thinking perhaps this is exactly the kind of report that would make me look great for being in the “i get it crowd”…and then realizing once again in life that it is not all about me.

But your post really struck a chord. I was in a meeting the other day with a potential client who said their “execs” told her to spend 1/3 of her budget on “social media”. Naturally she could not explain what in the world they meant by that.

I’m trying desperately to educate our clients, primarily b2b, on the many ways social media can play a significant role in their world and can honestly say it is just that right now, and education. And at the end of the day not everyone is really willing to pony up the dollars to learn what they need to know to launch a well thought out plan.

Which puts all of us in a very tenuous position when having to recommend the right things to do…

By: Jim Nail

Jim Nail — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:55:05 +0000

Hey, Todd. Good post.
As I said in the report: “Marketing services suppliers are in a tough spot. Clients are being overly optimistic expecting best practices in an area that is at most three years old.” And, as the data also shows, there are a lot of “wait-and-see” marketers who are more focused on viral marketing campaigns, a.k.a., a new way to push messages at people.

But I think it also says that clients are savvier than many agencies (SHIFT excepted, of course) give them credit for. The sense I got from reading the quotes was that clients may not know how to conduct a real dialogue, but they know what it is not. And after they get past the agency’s slideware, they’re seeing same old/same old put on YouTube or Facebook instead of CBS or People magazine.

By: Justin Foster

Justin Foster — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:19:07 +0000

Great post! My take is that agencies (PR or otherwise) will “get it” when they paid to get it. Right now, most agencies are set up to be list-centric – i.e. a campaign. As you stated, social media is NOT a campaign, nor is it an item on a checklist. It takes time and patience, neither of which clients are willing to pay for.

By: Mike Volpe

Mike Volpe — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:51:36 +0000

I agree that clients need to have an understanding of social media. In fact, this is similar to my belief that you should not hire an SEO firm witout understanding the basics of SEO. Same thing for social media / PR. Even if you hire an “expert” you still need to understand what you are buying well enough to have reasonable expectations and also properly manage the firm you have hired.

PS – For any readers interested in learning more about this topic — so you can then hire Shift and know enough to make Todd happy — we’re hosting a free webinar about Blogging for Business and also one about Social Media and Marketing, links below:

http://www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-webinars/blog-marketing

http://www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-webinars/social-media

By: Jason Falls

Jason Falls — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:26:54 +0000

Bravo, my friend. Having communicated with Jim before, I like him, too, but didn’t know what to think of the report. You’ve taken care of the worry for me. Beautifully done.

By: Scott Monty

Scott Monty — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:55:37 +0000

Have you been reading crayon’s cred deck? I figured with all of the Jaffe links above, you mut have seen our “it’s not a campaign, it’s a commitment” slide.

As you can imagine, there are some seriously dented foreheads over at our shop, after we read the AdWeek piece and said, “Duh!” But I like how you picked up on the subtlety behind Jim’s last phrase and made it clear that it’s our responsibility to manage expectations in addition to managing marketing programs.