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Why your social media strategy shouldn’t be owned by a PR or ad agency

January 28, 2011 |

For most companies the challenge is a cultural one, and an organisational one. Handing the social media reins to the best agency in the world, no matter what their discipline might be, is not going to help a firm to help itself in the long-run.

Agencies can play a massively important role in helping to define a roadmap for social media success, but helping is very different to ‘owning’.

The responsibility for developing and managing social media needs to be borne in-house if a business seriously intends to realign its culture. And make no mistake: social media is a cultural and organisational challenge for most businesses of any scale. Only by embracing engagement and by becoming more open - both internally and externally - can a business transform how it is perceived in public (and in private: staff retention and satisfaction are hugely important).

The pace of change is going to be incredibly important for some businesses that are obviously struggling to adapt. Many long-established (and seemingly slow-moving) brands are trading on their former glories, and have been found out. Companies with rubbish service levels might not be around in a decade or so. Yes, it can be hard to adapt to the demands of the modern business environment, but paying an agency to manage social media isn’t going to help these companies to directly deal with the challenges that face them.

Besides, outsourcing the management of social media sends out the wrong message. Where’s the commitment to interaction, to customer-centricity, to empowering staff, to giving a shit? Unless a brand really commits to engagement then it will seem fake and hollow to people who tune into you via social media channels. It’s the difference between a journalist interviewing a CEO directly to unearth some answers, and talking to a PR rep.

It’s not just about driving and embracing participation, it is about the quality of interaction. The right people need to be involved. I believe that the right people are in-house employees.

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