Ad agencies, while quick to recommend social media to their clients, are slow to use it themselves. A study by RSW/US and Second Wind shows that while nearly 75% of the agencies they polled have a social media presence, but most a majority of them don’t use it more than once a month.
According to an article on Adweek.com:
Nearly three-quarters of the 212 agency leaders polled in the online survey are connected to LinkedIn, 66 percent to Facebook and 56 percent to Twitter. But when asked how frequently they use each, the majority said no more than once a month. For example, 47 percent conceded that they never tweet, 7 percent said they tweet less than once a month and 4 percent tweet just once monthly.
The findings were similar for blogs, with 56 percent of the respondents saying that their agencies have blogs, but only 6 percent use them daily. A whopping 66 percent indicated that they blog no more than once a month.
I’m not sure if I should be surprised by all of this. (I’m not.) Many agencies suffer from the shoemaker’s children syndrome. They have the knowledge and experience doing the things they recommend, but they don’t have the time or energy to implement the strategy themselves.
How many web designers don’t have an updated website? How many social media strategists don’t monitor their own ROI and stats? We’ve certainly seen our share of agencies that aren’t eating their own dog food, but is it because they don’t have the time or because they don’t actually believe in it themselves?
We like to think it’s because they’re just too busy doing client work. But there are more than a few large agencies that just don’t get social media, and the only reason they’re on Twitter or Facebook is because they told an intern to set up the accounts.
Six months ago.
If agencies want to be in the position to tell clients why they need to use social media, they need to use it themselves. They need to eat their own dogfood. How else will you keep up with the developments in the field — developments that your clients will need to know about — if you’re not using the tools on a regular, frequent basis.
Appoint someone in a senior position to use social media, and give them permission to speak for the agency in their own voice. Make sure they’re given some time each day to use it Chris Brogan recommends 2 hours per day. (Hey, some of us work for a living, Chris.) We usually recommend 30 minutes a day, especially if it’s not part of your regular job description.
If you’re going to tell others to use social media, you need to do it yourself. This is not a “do as I say, not as I do” business. You’re doing your clients a disservice if you’re not tweeting using Linked In, or using other social media tools on a nearly daily basis yourself.
@Dan, I could see giving a younger staffer the keys to the social media car. But, they need to have management support, rather than having to run everything by a 2nd pair of eyes before it’s approved and posted. Forgetting the whole “that’s not authentic” argument for a minute, if nothing else, it creates a backlog. Think about how much of a pain it would be to get approval for a timely blog post from a guy who’s in meetings more often than not, or a new tweet from the account exec who’s on vacation or even on her lunch.
@Tim and @Kristi, thank you.
Amen, Erik! Thanks for this nugget of wisdom and reality of how scarce social media is currently communicated and cherished by advertising agencies internally.
@timotis
Erik,
Very good post, you hit a very important topic that should be addressed. If agencies are not careful, then their online presence (or lack there of) will become the elephant in the room at meetings in which they are pitching social media.
My only issue is that you say it is important to give a senior level person the responsibility to use social media. I don’t think that is always the case. I think agencies and any company for that matter need to identify what their goals are and then decide who should take the initiative based on that. Sometimes it is not senior level management, sometimes it is a young recruiter, and in some cases it is a complete team effort.
Dan´s last blog ..The Hidden Benefits of Building Your Brand Through Social Media: (Passive) Recruiting
I have witnessed this from the perspective of prospects who’ve come to me and said “can you help us with social media, our agency doesn’t seem to be as into it as you are” simply because they’ve gotten to know me on Twitter.
I can’t imagine making a ‘recommended time period to do social’. You’re either into it, or you’re not. You either get the benefits of expanding your online circles or you don’t. I live on Twitter, meaning, I go into and out of it during the day more often than I go into or out of my house. It’s a lifestyle, this social connectivity, not a job. Sometimes I get busy with client work and don’t tweet for a day or two – other times I tweet a lot during a day. It’s just the way I live now, not a place to distribute canned promotions like @iTunesMusic does. Companies and ad agencies need to wake up and stop being too pretentious to mix and mingle with fans, brand enthusiasts, moderately interested passers-by and detractors. That’s the real missing ingredient in “getting” all these social platforms… do you like the people you’re trying to sell to or not? Are you one of them? People seeking help from ad agencies in the social space and then experiencing this disparity are in essence, not relating to what they’re finding. The math of “we love social” has to compute with what you’re doing in the space, or you won’t be taken seriously, whether you’re some big boy ad agency or not. Social platforms have really become the great equalizer of consumers vs. brands in that regard. You have to put your money where your mouth is, whether you have time or not, or reap the consequences.
Kristi Colvin´s last blog ..I want to always have this video with me, so I’m embedding…
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