A lot of people have been discussing the suitability of different types of agencies to profitably design and manage (not 'control') social media strategy and programs for the benefit of their clients.
On the PR agency side, Strumpette continues to poke a sharp stick into both the old school purists who see social media as silly and the overzealous flag wavers who say the world is upside down. The goal is to spark meaningful discussion beyond the stump speeches meant to prove an agency 'gets it".
On the advertising and "pure digital" agency side (a pure digital agency these days is one that understands online advertising and creating branded user experiences), there isn't as much debate as they are too busy building their high-growth ad businesses. Online advertising, after all, is where a lot of the initial TV money is going.
I continue to believe that public relations has a tremendous opportunity to reinvent itself and take the leadership role in terms of guiding clients to effective conversation and relationship strategies facilitated by social media. I have made my case before.
But to fulfill that hopeful destiny, we will need to reshape our business. And not in the hyper-radical, PR-is-dead kind of way. This is the beginning of a discussion and in no way meant to be comprehensive. I am writing as I am thinking which is always dangerous but also what is appealing about much of blogging.
TWO THINGS THE AGENCY OF THE FUTURE NEEDS
PR agencies must benefit from bringing experienced interactive design and build teams in-house and making them part of the strategic team. That means adding user experience designers, programmers, producers to the mix. It's important not to put these folks in the gulag of the "services" camp. For the next few years we will all be in the mode of exploring new ways of engaging people. We will need to make experiences fast, try them, learn and change them. Our ability to make fast prototypes and even deploy interactive, Web 2.0-style projects builds on what PR agencies are already good at - working fast and responding to the marketplace (i.e. how people respond).
Outsourcing design and build is not good enough. Sure, expanding your in-house team via external specialists makes perfect sense. I would still want to reach out to great creatives and technologists beyond the core team. But being great designer/builders makes us all better planners and strategists.
Many of our opportunities rise beyond short-lived campaigns and into long-lasting relationships. To succeed, PR agencies will need to employ online community managers who understand how to nurture those relationships. Some capacity for community development must exist inside the agency. It cannot all be outsourced to companies like Communicpace or LiveWorlds. The danger in seeing this as another outsourced service is that the clients are not put in first person contact with their customers or potential customers. Ultimately, companies who discover the benefits of long-term customer communities must be the ones to carry on that relationship. But PR agencies have long been good at taloking with communities. I think of all the great social marketing work that gets done here at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Ogilvy PR). They reach out to patient advocacy groups, local communities, and other groups.
Now agencies need to bring in folks who understand how to nurture online communities. Thee is a great heritage for this with the message board communities and mavens from early AOL, the WELL, even the message boards communities we used to run at Discovery.com.
PR agencies need to make some changes to really show up for the latest challenge. the good news is that many of these changes play off of inherent strengths within PR over other disciplines. If we don't embrace this challenge, we will continue to see the rise of other hybrid agency types whether the Crispin's of the world or the pure-planning plays like Naked.
But wait, there's more.....(don't wait for me - what do you think is needed in the agency of the future....)
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