Comments on: Social Media – the aphrodisiac that finally got Digital & PR agencies to fall in love?

By: Brian wadsworth

Brian wadsworth — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:11:16 +0000

Alex; great post … I like the element of contention but also the offer to engage … Some great commentary too …..
I believe that client side confusion is also compounded by ‘if I spend, what do I get?’ Particularly as social media is ‘more spend’! Social media is less tangible than SEO, or at least less directly tangible. Also, traditional PR is well understood whereas Social media is an emerging dynamic on brand, image and reputation management. I also think that the same learning curve relating to ‘pull’ versus ‘push’ is associated with the new technologies and techniques emerging via the evolving power of the internet. ‘Push’ is well understood, but ‘Pull’ is ‘realtively’ new (and continuously evolving) and also somewhat invisible; albeit SEO analytics are now assisting with both performance management and decision making.
Client scepticism therefore needs to be educated and I agree totally Alex, engagement with traditional PR experts is vital if real campaign management is going to be maximised in both efficiency and effectiveness.
One further observation is that gestation periods of impact via social media campaigns further exacerbate the issues of engagement. On the one hand, if a client doesn’t engage it takes time for negative impact to take effect (on revenue and profit) and on the other hand it can be difficult to directly relate RoI to the specific social media activity; particularly when it is most often combined with SEO. This is an agency conundrum to solve!
However, thinking logically and with traditional PR dynamics in mind, it makes absolute sense that social media, for specific groups of enterprises, is needed and works well.
The key then is to remove the fear of engagement from the client and present a cogent and integrated package for both digial and traditional campaigns ……. which is what I believe you are proposing?
The bottom line is that the Internet is here and getting more powerful and also transferring the power to the consumer away from the supplier. Those who hesitate will lose out to those who engage and embrace. Thats a simple dynamic!

By: hannah_bo_banna

hannah_bo_banna — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:26:42 +0000

@Alex – It’s in the client’s interest to get their agencies working together (and indeed I think many already do). I’ve always really liked the idea of a truly integrated agency – media buyers, creatives, fulfillment houses, telemarketing, social media, market research, PR, SEO, PPC (I could go on forever) all under one roof. If I was running an agency, that’s definitely what I’d look to build.

By: Peter Handley

Peter Handley — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:23:57 +0000

@Alex The 2 PR Agencies I refer to, we work very closely with, not only with link building from Press Releases, but also integrating a strategy for Social Media promotion as well, working closely with us performing the SEO work – its not a “fully integrated” package yet, but its something that I am working on.

I think lots of PR companies have come a long way in the few years that I have been working in the digital space, though there is obviously still some way to go yet to reach what you are talking about here – there is no reason why this can’t happen in the future though

By: Alex Craven

Alex Craven — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:04:37 +0000

@Karyn great reply.. and i totally agree.. though I have to say you are probably the 1st PR I’ve heard speak with such clarity on the interplay between online PR, offline PR , SEO and social media.. I hope you represent where PR’s are headed.. we should talk further on this and integrated offering..?

@Peter good to hear PR’s taking into account the SEO link building oportunities in a press release but I’m looking for a bit more than this.. surely working closely with PR’s we could produce great content/link bait and with PR assistance get really good coverage.. much better that that gained through simple press release..?

@hanna good points, totally agree.. putting the ‘bad’ SEO’s & PR’s aside for a monent.. who should start the process.. is it the clients responsibility to get theor PR/Digital agency working together or should we (digital/PR agencies) be looking to create integrated offerings fronted by one another and proposed to our clients?

By: hannah_bo_banna

hannah_bo_banna — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:50:25 +0000

Back when I used to work in the Betting Industry we had a fantastic in-house PR team. Now whilst they didn’t really ‘get’ online; in fairness, back then I don’t think that anyone in the organisation did.

They were about as far removed from the crusty old press release peddling PR’s you’ve referred to. They had really good personal relationships with key members of the press and TV; and it was these relationships that got us coverage. They certainly weren’t about broadcasting a message, they took part in the conversation.

I think that whilst some PR agencies are some way off of the pace, there are lots of in-house and agency PRs who do understand the importance of ‘conversation’. Conversation and consumer engagement (yuck! marketing doublespeak) long predate social media.

I’d suggest that there are ‘good’ and ahem ‘not so good’ PR agencies, just like there are ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ SEO agencies

Should digital agencies team up with PR’s? Definitely. I think it would allow everyone to play to their strengths. Excellent post.

By: Peter Handley

Peter Handley — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:47:17 +0000

I’ve worked with 2 PR agencies who I believe have really started to “get” social media and how to maximise SEO benefits from releases they do on behalf of mutual clients – and have become much more integrated with the processes of releases they put out, to the stage where I usually don’t have to make any changes to what they are doing, because they have learned from what we have done in the past.

I have however worked with a few more that no matter what “education” I give them they are still (3 years down the line) don’t get SEO or Social Media and some of the more obvious things, let alone any of the more subtle nuances.

Some of them are evolving and doing what is necessary to move into the digital space, some of them seem to be struggling to keep up

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:35:05 +0000

@Alex that would depend on whether I was in comms (in which case I might automatically turn to my PR agency) or marketing (in which case my digital agency might seem like the logical choice). I think it’s important to remember that this is also an internal battle for some companies, where e-commerce and comms are very seperate, internally clients don’t always know who should deal with this either.

By: Karyn Fleeting

Karyn Fleeting — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:33:41 +0000

Crikey! Which PR agencies have you lot been dealing with?

It’s easy for digital agencies to declare that PR agencies don’t “get” social media and vice versa; I sit squarely in the middle (online PR) and get to see the good and the gory coming from both sides. All too often, in my experience, both sides possess different halves of the same jigsaw.

When you boil traditional PR down to its essence, it is about building relationships (with influencers, with consumers etc.) – skills that transfer very well. However it is true that in the main, traditional PR agencies have been slow to engage with online & social media. On the other hand, you get digital agencies claiming to offer “online PR” – and it turns out to be a solitary “press release”, beautifully optimised but badly written, bunged up on PR Web. Risible. Then there are the areas in which poor practice and room for improvement abounds – on both sides. Piss-poor attempts at “blogger outreach” and the proliferation of half-baked, corporate Twitter accounts are examples of these.

For me (and Tinderbox Media’s clients), the integrated approach is the way to go. We offer offline PR, online PR (includes social media and ORM) and SEO copywriting. Alex, you write of your yearning for a “stronger basis in traditional PR” and say that you see some opportunities for your clients. I think you are bang on here. Here is an example from my own recent experience: recently working with a client on a topical issue, secured appearance on a popular national radio programme. The appearance prompted two things: a post on the client’s blog, and a v. nice inbound link. It is a blog that reaps the benefits of SEO – and which (thanks to offline PR efforts) is read by key journalists, amongst others. As a result the post was picked up by other bloggers… and also by a top Sunday broadsheet…

Offline & online PR can bounce off one another brilliantly and perhaps, if PR agencies and/or digital agencies catch on to this, we’ll begin seeing more of what I just described above. Interesting times ahead.

By: Alex Craven

Alex Craven — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:25:38 +0000

@steph totally agree.. PR agencies need to be paying attention.. my question I guess is should digital agencies be looking to partner with PR agencies or perhaps take PR’s in house? if you were a client would you expect to turn to your digital or PR agency?

By: stuartpturner

stuartpturner — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:15:19 +0000

“before digital agencies simply retrain and step into the breach”

Sounds like some are well on the way already!

@Steph yeah definitely, we’ve come up against resistance both within companies and in PR agencies but there more they resist, the harder it’s going to be to catch up…