Jeremiah Owyang has a great post and slideshow this morning titled “The Social Reef”:
It is his explanation of the social media ecosystem. I read it this morning and was immediately struck that it never occurred to him to put agencies into this landscape. He responded to my tweet and wanted to think about where we would fit. Below is my take on where agencies belong:
Agencies role in the social media ecosystem is as educators and enablers for brands. To extend the analogy, agencies should teach brands how to fish in the social media reef. Brand managers are overworked as-is and need help getting up to speed on the ever-evolving social media world. Agencies role is to serve as experts on these technologies and the social norms of each social media service. Agencies can and should also launch campaigns into these spaces but the more important role is to enable brands to get active in the space. There are many types of education that need to happen:
- Social Media 101 – This usually starts with a slide featuring the hundreds of social media services available and the dives deep on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, ect. This is great to force marketers to start consuming and playing with social media. I’m a firm believer that no one should do anything in this space until they’re an active consumer of all forms of it. I think our challenge as agencies is to make sure we teach brands more than the basics. How do we create the next @zappos?
- Social Media 300 – This is where we teach brands to jump in and therefore about the norms of the social media community and how to give back in a meaningful way. It should also include a push to innovate – this is a new space and there’s a million new things to do. Look at the success CPB and Burger King had with “Whopper Sacrifice”!
- ENG 371WR:Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era – just kidding about this one but click through and read the hysterical McSweeney piece
Agencies here is defined broadly. Right now it is unclear who owns social media but everyone wants to. PR agencies have been active in the space both in educating clients and in putting together campaigns for them. Ad agencies were slower to jump in but now all are watching the space and some are actively engaging. New models/agencies are popping up – places like Chris Brogan’s “New Marketing Labs”.
What do you think? Do Agencies belong in the social media ecosystem? If so, in what way?