• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, March 17, 2010

The Future of Agencies in Social Media

A perpetual anxiety of media agency employees is that technology will somehow make them obsolete. It hasn’t happened yet and isn’t likely to, according to the panelists discussing social media and media buying and planning at OMMA Global on Wednesday morning -- however, what it always happening is change, which means their brief is always evolving. With social media moving from the first, exploratory phase to long-term strategies, Ekaterina Walter, a strategist for Intel, said clients are moving beyond “asking agencies, ‘fish for me,’ to ‘teach me how to fish,’� meaning they want to have more direct control over their social media presence. But agencies will still play a key role in identifying innovative new approaches, outlining key goals, and coordinating social media with the larger media plan.

MySpace, people think it’s dead.

 

Social is the ocean we’re all swimming in

Still customer relations

Still brand marketers

Customer relations, PR, bought media component to Twitter

 

Ekaterina Walter, strategist for Intel

Although agencies still have a role

The model is shifting from “fish for us� to “teach us to fish…�

We ourselves have to drive our social presence, as opposed to having agencies do all that for us.

How does the owner own social media

 

 

Back during the first wave of social media -- oh, those many years ago (2001-2005) -- it seemed like every brand was going to have its own proprietary social network of consumer enthusiasts. Those days are over: the idea was pretty silly, if you think about it (“I can’t wait to log into my Kleenex profile!�). At the social media and media planning panel on Wednesday morning, Matthew Pietro of Federated Media advised:  “It’s the wrong approach to build a community from the ground up, because there are already a number of communities existing,� both for general social networking or niche enthusiast groups, and “your audience is unlikely to want to go yet another microsite.� At the same time this doesn’t mean planners are off the hook, since all the third-party social networks are already there. Ekaterina Walter of Intel emphasized that “building a self-sustaining community… requires a lot of investment, a lot of time. It can’t just be a three-month effort and then it’s over, because that’s bad for your brand. And please don’t let your client say: ‘Can I just hire an intern, these young folks know how to create a Facebook page, and it’s cheap!’ Social media is not cheap!�