Is Social Media Too Boring For Advertising Industry?
I’ve met with several advertising executive honchos in recent weeks, from agencies large and small. The topic? No surprise. Social Media. These advertising execs are gung-ho about Social Media; it is generating cool, surprising and lucrative new opportunities for their agencies. But as the “campaign” becomes the “commonplace,” challenges rear up…
Here’s the gist of our conversations with the Ad Agency executives:
Advertising Exec: “Thanks for coming by. We know you guys ‘get’ Social Media. We get it, too; we love it in fact — but …”
PR Guy: “But it all starts to fall apart once you get past the campaign level?”
Advertising Exec: “Yea, yea, well, kind of… Don’t get me wrong, we can develop some community-appropriate and rockstar-level creative that helps start the conversations, even get a ton of fans or followers or whatever, but …”
PR Guy: “But then you have to feed that beast, right? You feel this voracious need to fill up the channel with new and excellent content, which is an expensive burden, both financially and creatively.”
Advertising Exec: “Yes, and then …”
PR Guy: “And then you also need to monitor these conversations and engage at a peer level in real-time, and also guide the client in how to react quickly, appropriately, and candidly themselves.”
Advertising Exec: “Yes!! And that’s not what we do.”
PR Guy: “Yep, I get it. You guys craft brilliant campaigns but the ‘relationships’ part feels low-level, mundane, hard-to-do, and fraught with risk as you engage with every Tom, Dick & Wierdo online.”
Advertising Exec: “See? I knew you ‘got it.’”
I have nothing but respect for the Advertising industry. Notice I use words like brilliant, rockstar, creative, etc., up above.
Whether “PR” or “Advertising” drive Social Media strategy has very little to do with which discipline better understands the New World Order. It has more to do with which group is better prepared to wade in — and never leave — the proverbial community pool.
Continue reading here: Red Tape Won't Stop Social Media From Changing Your Website Eventually
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