Social Fresh Charlotte Recap – On Social Media Agencies, Rubbermaid

It may be a week late, but here’s my entry into the “Social Fresh Charlotte Recap Post” ring. There are already a ton of great ones, collected in places like here and here to start.

What did I take away? First off, the conference was extremely well organized, so hats off to @jakrose and team for pulling it all together. Second, it’s clear from the energy, enthusiasm, and experiences of the attendees and presenters that the field of social media marketing is alive, thriving (despite the recession) and rapidly congealing into a focused marketing, communications, and support discipline. It was fun to be a part of all that.

I took notes on a bunch of good sessions, but for the sake of time I’ll share my thoughts on just two for now (self-servingly, one of those I was a part of):

SESSION: Bert Dumars (@bwdumars) – Building Social Media Across Multiple Departments

Bert is a walking case study in how large companies with multiple consumer brands are handling (successfully) the challenges of social media marketing. His talk reflected a lot of what I see in our own clients – a centralized set of social media domain experts working closely with the brand marketing leads to incorporate social into their existing marketing strategies. Bert shared a wealth of good examples and I ended up furiously taking notes to share back home.

What I took away:

• User-generated content (UGC) gets Rubbermaid the most mileage. Interested concepts like the Sharpie Doodle contest over on SharpieUncapped are great examples of how you can tap into the underlying passions of your existing customers to create a stronger, more personalized connection.
• Well-moderated communities thrive. Something of an intuitive finding that jives with what my own experience tells me, but nice to hear what Rubbermaid has gone through. Bert noted that as the Sharpie Facebook page grew past 1 million fans, the time needed to clean out spam and moderate the comments grew dramatically. However, the faster they cleaned out the junked, the faster they found their fan numbers grow. People appreciate a well-moderated discussion space.
• Social media marketing strategy is a component, not the be all end all. An oft repeated mantra, but one that people often forget. You need a marketing or brand strategy that incorporates social media, not the other way around.
• Rubbermaid is selectively using social media in the brands that make the most sense. Sharpie, definitely. Papermate or Uniball? Not so much. Despite all the attention, social media marketing just isn’t a great fit for many brands.

SESSION: Social Agencies, A New Model (Panel)

I had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussing how agencies are adapting to and pitching social media, involving panelists from four agencies each with a different angle on social media: Steve Parker (@levelwing), James Andrews (@keyinfluencer), Ted Shelton (@tshelton) and myself (@kevinbriody).

Though I’ll have to rely on anyone who was in the audience to tell how it really went, I think from the perspective of a panelists the flow went pretty well and we covered quite a bit of ground, ranging from general thoughts and trends to specifics like pricing agency services (by project, not by the hour, was the unanimous opinion). Hats off to Steve Parker for stepping up at the last minute to moderate.

What I took away:

While I often describe my employer, Ignite Social Media, as a “pure” social media marketing agency, that distinction is a lot less clear to me now after talking with Steve, Ted, and James. The lines between social media marketing and direct, relationship, ad, PR, etc are blurring so fast that it seems we’re more accurately described as a marketing agency with a special focus on social media as a channel and toolset.

After all, we have an analytics team, a media buying team (from search to display to social), full creative and technical teams…all in addition to people doing strategy, blog outreach, new content, and so on. Ted rightly called me on the fact that while we focus on the social media domain space, our capabilities make us more of a full service marketing shop than I would previously thought. It’s definitely interesting to be involved in the evolution of a whole field of marketing…

I also want to call out Amber Naslund (@ambercadabra) and Dave Thomas (@davidbthomas) both put out some great stuff. I wrote a bit about Amber’s presentation last week, nothing yet about Dave’s, something I hope to remedy soon (especially as he’s moving to a new role which I’m sure will put him solidly on the speaker circuit).

Why no single type of agency will own social media

There’s been a debate raging among agency-types and industry watchers for some time now: Who will “own” social media? The ad agencies? The PR agencies? The marketing firms? Digital shops? Or maybe specialty agencies who do nothing but social?

One argument holds that agencies are converging as they chase the significant movement in attention and budgets towards digital and social, and it’s an epic battle for which flavor of agency will “own” social media in the future (Jason Keath’s post is a great example in favor of PR; to which Valeria Maltoni has a well argued counterpoint. The debate goes on). But here’s the thing.

They are all wrong

Why? Because all those arguments are based on a single false premise: there is no one “right way” to do social media to the exclusion of others. Social media is not solely about reputation, conversation, or crisis management. It’s not only useful for engagement, word-of-mouth, viral, or branding.

Rather, social media is a hydra, a multi-headed way of thinking, connected by a common set of tools, platforms, and concepts, that impacts an organization in so many ways that no single type of agency can claim exclusive domain over it all.

How many heads does this thing have?

• Social media is an excellent tool for long-term reputation building, for story telling, and for crisis communications – the natural purview of public relations agencies.
• Social media is incredibly useful at branding, creating emotional attachments and personal connections with brands of all varieties – the domain of branding and ad agencies.
• Social media, tracked and expressed via engagement tactics and metrics, can be the cornerstone of a powerful relationship marketing program – the haunt of marketing agencies.
• Social media can be very effective as a medium for promotional and demand generation campaigns of incredible variety – making it a valid tool for ad, marketing, and digital agencies.

The mishmash occurring right now, as outlined in Forrester’s “Great Race” concept, is happening in part because of client demand and shifting budgets. There’s undeniably a shift going on in where the client dollars are flowing, and no agency wants to be caught on the wrong side of it. In the rush there’s a confusion as the boundaries blur and client marketers learn. But the seeming convergence of agency practices in social media is also happening because those agencies all – rightly – see the practical value of social media in achieving results in their own respective domains.

The PR guys need social media capabilities as it’s good for PR, while the marketing people need it because it’s a useful engagement strategy.

Is there overlap? Of course, and there will likely be indefinitely. The entire concept of social media is so new and evolving so rapidly that it’s hard to tell where social media for PR stops and social media for advertising or marketing begins. Within most client organizations the same confusion reigns, and that’s simply reflected outwards in how they currently select agencies to work with in the space.

But my underlying point remains: In the long term no single type of agency will ever “win” social media all up because social media itself is a useful tool for every agency, and most every discipline. Rather, smart agencies of all stripes will develop expertise in social as it relates to their own practices and as client organizations of all variety come to recognize the value it offers.

What makes a dream client for a social media agency?

Aside from one that pays on time, you mean? (kidding…mostly)

This is a topic that came up while crafting a couple recent RFP responses, both of which were for companies that I think truly fit the bill as a “dream” client for a social media agency.

So what makes a “dream” client for this particular field? They must have:

1. A passionate user community
2. An inspiring brand or products
3. Tons of great content
4. Some genuine, relatable, interesting characters willing to step into the limelight

A passionate user community

It is called social media after all, right? Social media marketing thrives when it can connect with a thriving, passionate user community around the brand, products, or at least market space. Passionate users are far more likely to be willing to create (photos, entries, videos, etc.), to share, and to line up as early adopters. Every social media marketing program relies to some extent on the most passionate members of the community for success, and if an organization already has a great community built up around their brands, so much the better.

An inspiring brand or products

Hand in hand with the above (and likely a prerequisite for), an truly inspiring brand with strong emotional connections to the wider community is simply invaluable for a social media marketing – any marketer, really. Even if the brand itself is less than shining, say in the case of a conglomerate, if the products are rock solid, with great reputations for reliability, innovation, uniqueness, or whatever, then the way is paved for a fantastic engagement with the user community. After all, you’re coming in representing something they already have strong positive feelings about.

Tons of great content

This came up with one particular prospect. Their brand wasn’t all that well known, nor were their actual commercialized products, but they had access to a steady stream of constantly refreshing, hyper relevant (to their intended audience), and highly interesting content. Surveys, reports, commentary, research, and so on. Why is this important? Because as many have noted, outstanding content is one of the foundations of a successful social media effort – it tends to get shared and retweeted more, and readers come to rely on it, recognizing the real value your brand is bringing to their personal or professional lives on a consistent basis. That’s a pretty strong spot to be in.

Characters

Or as noted in the list above: “genuine, relatable, interesting characters willing to step into the limelight.” These can be executives, and often are, but these can also be individuals who are rock stars at what they do and have outsized voices to match. They’ll come in many, many forms, and if they are right for the “stage” around your brand will depend on a host of factors – what industry are you in, what role do they play, are they active speakers, writers, or bloggers, can they even speak or write in a public forum, do they have something – anything – that makes them compelling to your user community?

In tech fields these are often developers or engineers, in the consumer space executives or even celebrities who have a close association with your brand and are willing to speak for it.

If your client has these characters, and is willing to make use of them, then the dividends within a social media program can be enormous. They can be sources of great content, they help the community connect with your brand on a very personal level, and so on.

The perfect social media client?

Is there one? Even if they have all the good stuff I just mentioned? Unlikely, just like there’s no “perfect” social media agency – each has their own quirks and foibles, and style and personality, just like in dating, are enormously important in finding that “perfect” match. But if you can consistently work for clients who have all, or at least some, of the characteristics listed above, you’re likely bound for a wonderful ride.