The Great Agency Digital and Social Collision

There’s a massive collision happening right now, a violent convergence of ideas and business models that’s changing the agency world almost overnight. And while it is one hell of a mess, it’s also a tremendous opportunity for those smart enough to recognize how agencies are being reshaped, and what that opens up.

That’s the gist of a presentation I gave to a couple student classes and groups at Elon University in Burlington, North Carolina two weeks ago. A short version is available on Slideshare, and is embedded immediately below.

The basic idea behind the collision is this: as the media world radically shifts thanks to the rise in digital and in particular the emergence of social media as a consumer-driven force, smart marketers are starting to shift their budgets to align with the new reality. Agencies of all stripes – from advertising and creative to PR, Media, Digital, DM and on – are in turn chasing those dollars.

As a result we find PR agencies with fully baked in-house digital shops, and formerly TV-heavy ad agencies with more full-time social media strategists than the largest digital group. We find a surge in acquisitions of speciality social media agencies, who find themselves by foresight or happy accident sitting square in the most lucrative sweet spot.

From a client-side marketer’s perspective, things are both wildly confusing – “why is my PR agency pitching their HTML5 expertise again?” – and loaded with choice, variety, and cost pressures working in their favor. They might put out an RFP for a social media campaign, and wind up with a final pitch group consisting of a niche social agency, a full-service (and large) digital agency, and a global PR agency’s digital group squaring off against their own current advertising agency-of-record.

What’s stressful for the agency new biz guys is heaven for the clients.

All this is radically reshaping the agency world, as traditional lines between agency specialities are blurring. For smart, digitally- and socially-savvy aspiring employees like those I met with at Elon, the opportunities this chaos creates are endless. The market for their skills has grown dramatically, and no longer are they locked into traditional career paths (“oh, she’s an ad creative”).

Their expertise, as it grows, has the potential to be attractive to every type of agency that’s chasing those digital and social client budgets. Which is to say, every agency that intends to survive past the next 5 years or so.

The next 12-24 months in my view will see this collision in the digital and social center accelerate, amplifying both the confusion and opportunity I mentioned above. Should be fun.

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.