Comments on: The death of the agency

By: Social media career advice | 42 Pts on a Double Word Score

Social media career advice | 42 Pts on a Double Word Score — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:19:00 +0000

[...] and the communities of knowledge around them mature, social-media-specific consulting as a concept is going to sound as insane as fax-machine-specific consulting or press-release-specific [...]

By: Brendan Hodgson

Brendan Hodgson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:44:27 +0000

Hi Joe, it’s an important question. Do I think the agency model is broken? I may be biased, of course, but from my vantage, and so long as people look for advice and counsel, I don’t believe so. As Francis states, smart companies will look to “experts” for guidance and support on some aspects of implementation. That has been the role that the digital team at H&K has been filling with some success. We may need to temper our expecations with respect to the longer-term potential and scope of any engagement, but I don’t think we need to bring out the grim reaper yet. I agree with Ryan: out-sourcing social media is (for the most part) counter-intuitive. The larger challenge, as you describe, is ensuring organizations have the mechanisms and resources in place to sustain and expand their social media activities once started. That’s something we can advise them on, but unless they’re willing to invest, it’ll be for nought.

By: Robin Browne

Robin Browne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:27:03 +0000

Hi Joe,
The podcast is up at http://www.consciousimages.org/?p=347
Cheers,
Robin

By: Ryan Anderson

Ryan Anderson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:09:58 +0000

You make some good points, and there are a few things to consider.

First, if your agency takes you down a path you can’t sustain without doing due diligence, fire them.

The second thing is that brands have to understand that social media isn’t something you can outsource. Brand managers are used to just dealing with agencies in the capacity of approving media buys and creative, rubber stamping insertion orders and away you go. Social media takes more care and feeding than just that.

In response to Erik’s comment – if you can’t afford the time, no, you shouldn’t be trying social media. That said, if you can one print ad or cut your banner budget by 15%, you can have someone in house that has the ability to monitor, respond to and nurture a community. The problem is that many measure success by impressions, so creating a vocal community of 10,000 people is nowhere near the 10,000,000 banner impressions you’d get for the same cost. The only difference is that someone would be paying attention to your message instead of shutting it out completely.

Yup – the agency model is broken, but in the same breath, you have to admit that the client model is broken too. Only when the clients get savvy enough to understand how much they’re getting screwed by the traditional model will things change.

By: Francis Moran

Francis Moran — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:54:18 +0000

In the best social-media, you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours tradition, here’s my input, Joe, to your discussion coming out of this morning’s Social Media Breakfast Ottawa. (Joe has already weighed in on my much less temperate review of the session at http://bit.ly/2gpc0m.)

I think the traditional agency model has long been under threat, and not just because of the dawn of social media. It’s a top-heavy beast in danger of toppling over under the weight of its overheads and voracious appetite.

The reality — and you are I are in sharp agreement on this, Joe — that clients have to do an awful lot of the heavy social-media lifting themselves may put agencies out of the running as implementers. But I see no reason why they can’t be the architects of the strategy and, where technical skills are required, be part of the implementation team.