Benjamin Spiegel, CEO of MMI Agency, published an article in the online publication AdvertisingAge. In it, he systematized the results of their reflections about what kind of Agency is better suited for the SMM-support brands. Offer you adapted translation.
Promotion in social media consists of several areas: interaction with the public and opinion leaders, launch advertising campaigns, content creation, idea generation and Analytics, and strategy development. It’s all new and developed sites.
Whom to entrust this kind of work? Media agencies? SEO Agency? And, maybe, creative or PR Agency?
Why segregation of duties is not working
What is required to make that choice? Then, the division of responsibilities looks nice on paper, but in real life does not work. For example, a brand wants to post, but the media Agency will have a whole day to look for a suitable site. A creative Agency came up with an explosive idea, but can’t get a quick confirmation to realize. The dynamic and changeable nature of social media makes this division of tasks is totally ineffective.
And we are back to the same question: who should lead the brand on social media?
Possible options
- Media agencies. Most of them are unable to create creative content and to build meaningful dialogue between the brand and buyers.
- SEO agencies. The hype of the last two years connected with the integration of SEO and social networks for the automatic ranking of the channels, a quick search and placement of content. But for all this, enough for a few of the Google tools.
- The creative Agency. They are very good in terms of creating interesting branded content online. But with Analytics, search, channels for promotion and communications in General, they have problems.
- PR-Agency. PR and social media are closely related. Public relations professionals have worked for years with the mood of the audience, attracted thought leaders and engaged in storytelling. They may not be too strong in the creative or purchase of sites, but they have no equal in building relationships with the brand.
So which Agency to choose?
SEO, media and creative agencies are doing a great job — but none of them is ideal for building long-term relationships with the public. If you consider that the new tools and social networks occur every few days, clearly define the optimal variant is not possible. But my experience tells me: SMM — it evolved PR. Therefore, PR agencies are the best option to support the brand in social networks.
PR version 2.0 will continue to build relationships between the brand and buyers, but using social platforms. And to offset all the weaknesses, it is sufficient to include the PR Agency of specialists from related fields.
