Don’t trust your ad agency with your social media
// June 17th, 2008 // Advertising
photo credit: ribena_wrath
“…advertising agencies have used social media for people to create relationships with the brand only as long as it happens in the three months that their campaign is running.
… why do advertising agencies think it is okay to do this in social media?
Although you may think it’s a great idea to run a MySpace/Facebook page for a fictional character from your advertising campaign, what happens when the campaign ends?”
From Marketing Magazine
Great opinion from Julian Cole, one of the new marketing bloggers I’ve added to my daily feed reading this week. It’s true: advertising agencies are set-up to manage campaigns, and a campaign by definition has an end date as well as a beginning. Once you step forward into social media, there’s no stepping backward without damaging the relationship with the customer relationships you’ve built online.
Unless, of course, your advertising agency hasn’t built you any new customer relationships online. That too can happen.
Getting an agency to drive your social media can work if they understand social media, but their work needs to be delivered on a retainer basis, not a campaign basis. Otherwise, while they’re pitching you the next campaign, your customers are becoming disaffected and walking away from the online relationship you’ve created.
Another tip of the hat to Julian for this great basketball long shot from YouTube, which Julian uses nicely in an analogy on his blog.
