Agencies not using social media well

By November 16 2009, 10:19 am 9 Comments
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The ad agency world is not shining when it comes to using social media to market itself, according to new research, but is pretty good at setting things up blogs and Twitter accounts and then infrequently updating them.

Overall, the **research from search consultants RSW/US found that very few agencies are using social media for new business prospecting.

The implications for that seem blindingly obvious: if you’re pushing social media at your clients, but are not actively using it yourself (or just as bad using it well) then what kind of message does that send out?

Of social media used, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are those that agencies are most often using. LinkedIn seems to be getting the most activity (56% use it most often), which the report says makes sense as it is a good resource for new business people looking to track down prospects.

However, while there are many signed up to LinkedIn there are far fewer (the report suggests) using it to share ideas or active participate in a community or LinkedIn group.

Overall 57% of agencies surveyed have a Twitter account; 74% LinkedIn; 56% a blog and 67% a Facebook page.

Those figures strike me as low. Why every agency doesn’t have a blog is beyond me. It’s cheap it is easy and in this business there is a great deal to blog about and to highlight to clients and new business prospects alike.

Even the 56% with a blog are pretty poor at updating: 45% never blog and 21% blog once a month or less. Once a month???

With Twitter the figures are worse. Of those on Twitter 74% tweet once a week or less indicating that agencies are taking a very passive approach to social media when the whole point about being social is being active and engaged.

To be fair Facebook fares better than Twitter and blogs, but I wonder if the social network is as useful here as Twitter or a blog.

 

Having a page on Facebook is not bad thing, but it doesn’t strike me as useful as a regularly updated agency blog.

 

That said if you are not actually updating your agency blog or tweeting you have to wonder what activity is taking place on the Facebook page.

This is a US report, but my guess is the situation in the UK is even worse. On that note, there is a story on Ad Age today that asks the question: Are UK Shops Losing Their Touch in the Digital World?

While Daniel Bonner, European chief creative officer at AKQA and Adam Kean, joint executive creative director of Publicis, London, put in a good defence, former Saatchi & Saatchi creative director Dave Droga (now Droga 5 in NYC) argues that TV, press and outdoor are the primary focus of UK agencies; that there is less integration; and a tendency to default play it safe. Pretty damning stuff.

Former TBWA creative director and Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury founder Steve Henry, who of course has a blog on this site damns UK agencies further by saying that creativity is at an all time low. Ouch.

“The new interactive model requires a new mindset and a new skill set. Not everyone is able or willing to make the transition.

“Agencies have not risen to the challenge or brought in new skill sets, and their clients are looking elsewhere,” he said.

 

[Twitter]

 

**The samples came from databases of 6,000 marketing service companies that range in size from under $5M in capitalized billings to over $50M.
212 agencies responded to the survey.

  • http://www.pr-media-blog.co.uk Jon Clements

    Despite the findings of this research, my impression is that UK PR businesses are putting in a respectable performance in terms of demonstrating a grasp of social media within their own digital walls.

    No, I have no stats to back this up, but of the UK-based PR blogs I follow closely – including those run by Wildfire PR, Wolfstar, Berkeley PR, Liberate Media and Coast Digital, alongside our own PR Media Blog – the content is regularly refreshed, of high quality and relevance and integrated with other social networking platforms.

    Content generation and engagement chimes well with core PR skills and, in my view, PR agencies are the ones rising to the social media challenge.

  • Gordon Macmillan

    Jon i think you’re spot on about PR shops and how they are ahead of the curve on blogging and social networking. I think it is ad agencies that are poor. I did amend the post and put that distinction in as although the report didn’t say – i don’t think they were talking about PR agencies.

  • http://www.haimediagroup.com Lisa Devaney

    It makes sense for ad and PR agencies to be at the leading edge of social media for campaigns, but it remains a challenge to get the clients to understand the value and importance of this important communication channel. Inspiring a conversation on Twitter, or interacting with “fans” on Facebook is as important as seeing mainstream media coverage. One of my clients reported getting more downloads of their mobile product from the results of a blog coverage, than they did from a huge story in The New York Times. The audiences for brands are alive and responsive in social media, and may be more passive toward traditional media outlets. This post is great and I’ll be showing it to clients, in helping to educate them about the power of social media, and why they should be paying attention to it in 2010+

  • Rick Sareen

    Gordon, not entirely sure whether an agencies use of the medium is any indicator of its expertise in that medium. Agencies don’t advertise; mainly because they know that is not the way to get new biz. You’re better off paying attention to your AAR or CreativeBrief reel.
    However I do think the last point about agencies not really having understood the medium is probably true but it is a consequence of the change the broader comms world is undergoing which necessites a change in the operating system of the agency world; and as others have observed (that Sorrell fellow had a few words on the subject recently) maybe we have to wait for a generational change before the use of the medium becomes more attuned to the users of the medium.

  • Milly Diaz

    In reaction to the same report, our company’s head of social media noted that in interests of fairness, it’s worth acknowledging that these surveys are always dependent on the person who fills it in being the one who does all these activities (http://blog.tamar.com/2009/11/are-marketing-agencies-practising-what-they-preach/). Last note, it’s important for agency leaders to set an example. Where I work, we’re inspired to actively contribute and follow the lead of our CEO who’s a regular contributor to our company blog.

  • Jack Wallington

    I’ve seen good agency Twitter feeds and blogs, but agency use of social media could be so much more than that…

  • Gordon Macmillan

    @Rick You make a fair point about “whether an agencies use of the medium is any indicator of its expertise”, but if an agency has a blog it should, you know, update it. I think that was the point of the report. There are agencies doing stuff half hearted. Starting a Twitter account, but rarely tweeting et cet.

    @Milly Bang on: “it’s important for agency leaders to set an example”; and there is probably not enough of that.

  • Rick Sareen

    They don’t update it because they don’t know why they are doing it. Purposeless activity often falls by the wayside. And rightly so. It’s a form of Darwinism.

  • http://www.neilperkin.typepad.com/ N PERKIN

    Interesting post Gordon. I think its important to take account of the fact that there may be people within those agencies who are using these tools (and so have first hand experience), but you are right about agencies needing to practice what they preach.
    @Rick – I think Gordon’s point is that if they did it properly perhaps it wouldn’t be purposeless activity?

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