Some things actually are black and white.
A conversation with a good friend in the agency world the other day (and particularly her horrified reaction to what I shared with her) prompted me to finally write this post. If your company is working with an agency on building or managing a social media program, you probably need to read this. And if you work for an agency that works with social media, you definitely need to read this.
Here’s the skinny: I work with agencies around the world, and more importantly, I have friends in a lot of places, both on the brand side and the agency side. Every chance we get, we talk shop. When someone does something cool, we talk about it. When someone does something not so cool, we talk about it too. And when we start noticing things that bother us, especially when those things touch on ethics, we most certainly talk about it. Over the last few months, one conversation has dominated all others, and it is this: The existence of two prevailing agency models when it comes to building and managing social media programs for clients. One is primarily client-focused and good, and the other… well, not so much. And yet, the latter seems to be gaining traction in the agency world, and that isn’t good.
Here is what these two models look like:
Model #1: The proper, working model.
In this model, the agency identifies the client’s business objectives and uses its capabilities to support them. Note that in this model, the agency doesn’t simply pitch a campaign or provide a cookie-cutter service. It identifies the client’s goals. It clarifies them, even, if not for themselves, for the client (as this is sometimes needed).
For example, if the client comes into a meeting and says “we need a social media program” or “we want 100,000 new Twitter followers by Christmas,” the agency doesn’t simply nod and set to work building a social media program or acquiring 100,000 new followers. What it does first is dig a little deeper: It finds out why the client wants a social media program or why 100,000 new twitter followers is a significant number for them. It finds out what the social media program is there to accomplish. Is it to attract new customers? Is it to capture more relevant data from existing customers? Is it to improve conversion rates or facilitate positive word-of-mouth? Is it to build the foundations of a consumer insights program? Is it merely to monitor brand mentions for a while, until the executive team has a better idea what they want to do?
Whatever the client’s ultimate goal (or series of goals) is, that becomes the basis for the program or campaign. That complex of end goals becomes the driving force behind the ideas, the mechanisms and the activities that will become the core of the pitch.
Why? Because a social media program that blends customer acquisition and increased buy-rate with facilitating WOM and activating hobbyist communities looks VERY different from a social media program whose objective is merely to “build and fill.” (The self-serving process by which an empty space is built only to be filled by a budget.)
What comes out of this type of model is a social media program that blends into a client’s overall business ecosystem. It deliberately supports its marketing efforts, its PR efforts, its customer service efforts, its sales efforts, and so on. Success is measured not only in social media metrics (net new likes/fans/subscribers/followers, net mentions, sentiment deltas and estimated advertising value) but in business-relevant metrics as well: Net new customers, Net growth in sales, increased buy-rates, net positive customer recommendations, improvements in loyalty metrics, increased market share, faster customer service ticket resolutions, improvements in PR crisis resolution, greater operational efficiency in x, etc.
In this model, the agency works with the client as an integrated partner, not just an outsourced service provider, and the results are concrete. In fact, the question of R.O.I. pretty much answers itself. It is never in question. Whether in a support role or a leadership role, the agency and the client act in tandem from start to finish.
This is the proper model for agency involvement in Social Media with a client. The ideal model, if you will.
Model #2 : The improper, unethical model.
In spite of the amazing breadth of potential for agencies in the social media space in terms of impact, revenues and success, many unfortunately choose to just cut corners and go for the fast, easy money. In this model, an agency knowingly sells what essentially amounts to bullshit to unsuspecting clients.
Let me give you two examples:
1. “We need to be in social media.”
Client comes to agency thinking they need a social media program. Their competitors all have one now, and after years of resisting, it looks like they are just going to have to get into that social media “business.” They don’t know much and they don’t know what they want, so they are relying on the agency to provide them with whatever help they need.
What the agency comes up with is a package that includes the development of an official Facebook page, several customized Twitter accounts, a YouTube channel, some internal training, and a content package to go along with it all. If the client has the funds, some campaigns will be thrown into the fray, maybe a contest or two.
Enter the “win an iPad 2 for liking our new Facebook page or following us on Twitter” discussions.
Enter the 5 tweets per day and 3 Facebook updates per day content packages.
In this model, nothing actually happens that directly impacts the business. Nothing is done to support a particular business objective or outcome. The model is simply this: To create billable social media “activity,” bill the client, and generate metrics that seem to indicate that the social media activity is a success. (We will come back to that in a minute.)
What the client ends up with is noise. Ask the client about his social media program, and he will proudly tell you how wonderful it is. Ask him what it is doing for his company, however, and the answers begin to sound less concrete. “Well, we’re attracting a lot of comments and likes. Like, 30 or 40 per week now.”
Yeah? That’s wonderful. But what is it doing for your business?
2. “We need 100,000 followers asap.”
Client comes to agency with an urgent need to grow its social media reach from 7,359 likes/fans or followers to 100,000 by Christmas. Why? Could be anything: Because the CEO said so. Because their closest competitor is there already and it’s embarrassing to be that far behind. Because the digital manager just came back from a conference during which a social media guru told them that 100,000 followers was a minimum benchmark for a brand.
What the agency comes up with is a simple package based on “the value of a fan” or “the value of a follower.” From this subjective metric, the agency quotes the client on a price: “We can get you your 100,000 followers before Christmas, but it will cost $x.” Negotiations ensue. A price is agreed upon. The agency throws in a little hat trick: “If we get you to 120,000 followers by Christmas, how about a 5% bonus?” The answer: No, but if you get us to 100,000 by December 1st, you’ll have your extra 5%.
This is a real situation, by the way. A real conversation.
From the client’s perspective, this is an awesome deal:
1. Internally, nothing is required except signing checks, signing off on activity, and keeping track of the agency’s progress. If the agency fails, no one is really to blame internally. The agency can be fired and replaced. But if they succeed, there will be enough glory to go around.
2. It would cost 5x more to reach potential customers in more traditional ways, even email. Social media really is cheaper!
3. We have a social media program! How cool is that?!
4. The client thinks it could have never gotten 100,000 followers on his own by Christmas. God bless that agency and its amazing social media savoir-faire!
From the agency’s perspective, this is an even better deal:
1. The client hasn’t figured out that social media activity is there to support business objectives. He is so focused on hitting that follower goal that nothing else really matters. All the agency will be goaled on is its ability to reach that number by Christmas December 1st. Nothing else matters. Not conversions, not positive WOM, not FRY, nothing. Just get those 100,000 followers.
2. The client is clueless about social media, and there is no reason to change that. The less they know, the more they rely on the agency to deal with their needs. This is very good for the agency, as we will see in a moment.
3. The agency, like an increasing number of its “competitors” around the world, has been recently and repeatedly pitched by companies out of China, India, South America and Eastern Europe that offer followers, fans, likes, clicks and other digital traffic à la carte. It can, like any other agency with the funding to do it, pay for all the new followers and fans it wants. You can buy all the positive mentions you want too.
Let me explain how this works: Money changes hands. Somewhere in a country where the client has no business presence, 25,000 people either create accounts or use existing ones via proxies and simply click “like” or “subscribe” or “follow.” These people will NEVER become customers, but to the client who doesn’t know, they have just become his 25,000 new followers on Twitter.
The only two details for the agency to worry about at that point are a) making sure to cover their tracks, and b) figure out the optimal markup.
This, boys and girls, is how it’s done, and we aren’t just talking about small fly-by-night outfits. Think bigger. Much bigger. And it doesn’t stop there.
4. The agency doesn’t need to have experienced professionals on their social media integration/management team anymore. Why waste money on that when you can just buy fans and followers?
Agencies opting for this model have two options:
A) Hire someone with an influential blog on Social media and put them on staff as a sort of social media mantle piece. These folks will be there to woo the client and help pitch them. They’ll charm them and do some internal trainings for them. They’ll create content for the agency blog, put a face to the agency’s social media capabilities, speak at events (always pitching the agency’s “case studies,” of course), and serve as a “thought leader” but will never actually work on building anything for clients.
B) Hire or promote someone with zero experience in social media integration and build them up as “experts” anyway. Any intern will do, but someone with a few years of experience in any “digital” field will look better. If you’ve ever wondered how some of these people you have never heard of become “experts” almost overnight, wonder no more.
Think about it: Why bother staffing up with expensive talent when you can just buy your followers and fans? The page builds can be outsourced to developers. The content can be outsourced to any number of content farms. The structure is already in place. If the agency is already working on a campaign, its content can be easily adapted to social media channels. (Add revenue line items here, here, and here.)
5. Once the followers have been purchased and the campaign or program seems to be gaining traction, start beating your own drum. Convince the client that their success could make a great case study, then build it up. In a few months, wouldn’t it be great to present at conferences around the world how “engagement” and “content” took Brand A from 7,000 followers to 100,000 in just a few months? Oh, the white papers. Oh the slide decks. Oh the positive press in Mashable and ZDnet. Oh the blog posts. Oh the awards.
Get on the phone with the PR team pronto.
Meanwhile, those 100,000 followers provide nothing for the business. Sure, it looks good when people check out the account’s profile page. It looks like the company and its agency are doing something right. The stats are easy to graph too. Empirical data, right? Is anyone ever going to go back and check where all of those “fans” came from?
Unfortunately, that number is a smoke screen. The vast majority of those followers will never become customers. They will never recommend the company (unless paid to do so). They’re paid extras, pretending to like your company, nothing more. Chances are, they had never heard of it before an email notification with a Paypal link told them to.
Meanwhile, the agency looks like a superstar. In the next few months, other brands will visit them and these words will fill their conference room time and time again:
“Can you do for us what you did for [Brand A]?”
The answer will always be yes.
6. Do not pass Go. Collect that 5% bonus for spending the client’s money faster than the original timetable called for.
In this type of model, KPIs (key performance indicators) will tend to focus on digital measurement only:
Net new follows.
Net new likes.
Net new subscribers.
Net new & volume of mentions.
Click-throughs.
EAV/EMV (Estimated Advertising/Media Value)
Reports will include fascinating graphs measuring “engagement” and “social equity.” Middle-managers will have exciting (albeit somewhat complicated) reports to present to their bosses that clearly indicate that the agency is kicking ass, doing its job, earning its pay. And yet, nothing concrete will come out of it. No actual new customers. No increases in loyalty. No preparedness for the next PR crisis. No improvements anywhere, except for all that “activity” in social media, except for all that noise.
I’ve been in the room when deals like this were discussed. I’ve had drinks with agency professionals who confirmed, disgusted, that it was becoming standard operating procedures at their firms. I’ve worked with clients who had no idea the extent to which they had been screwed by their own agencies in precisely this manner until they started digging under the surface of easy “social” metrics and “R.O.I. is not really applicable to social business” discussions.
This is happening in your market right now. It doesn’t matter if you’re in New York or Paris, Atlanta or Brussels, San Francisco or Hong Kong. This model is gaining traction because it’s easy, it’s cheap, it generates revenue and accolades for agencies, and the clients don’t know enough to make a stink. (Not that making their disappointment public would be to their advantage anyway.)
Where your choices lead:
Fortunately, because the second model is now so widespread, it won’t remain a dirty little secret much longer. Before long, clients will start figuring it out, other witnesses to it will start talking about it, and the agencies they work(ed) for will be exposed. Careers will be tossed down the proverbial drain, and the higher the pay grade, the harder the fall. Don’t kid yourselves: It is as inevitable as the fall of Enron.
Take a step back and ask yourself: What will clients do when they find out? How many new clients will these agencies attract once the curtain falls away? Who will want to go work for that kind of organization? What kind of professional will they attract (and more importantly, retain)? What future can this sort of organization really hope for?
To use a cycling analogy, do you really want to be remembered as the guy who won the Tour de France only to be stripped of the honor for blood doping a year later?
Cheating to win sucks. Cheating to get paid or to get ahead sucks. And no one gets away with it. No one. Not anymore. What side of the ax do you want to be on when it finally falls? That’s your call.
The agencies who opt for real results, on the other hand, who truly want to be the best in the business, whose relationship with clients is not predatory or parasitic, will stand out and attract solid talent, the people with insights and ideas and the ability to win and help them grow. Their success in recruiting the best talent in the world and use it properly will get around. This will gradually score them bigger clients. Meanwhile, the idiots who ripped off their clients with purchased “success” will just vanish from the scene altogether.
I know this because Tyler knows this. And also because I also know that reputation is everything. People talk. People always talk. And they always remember too.
As I begin to transition from being just an independent consultant (where my impact is often far too limited for my taste) to joining a larger organization (where I will be able to do a lot more), I realize how difficult the next few months will be. Sorting through potential new ‘homes’ for me won’t be as easy as just agreeing on a figure anymore. Now I have this stuff to deal with too, and the big famous name on the door doesn’t mean what it used to back in the day. As sad as that is, it’s the sad reality of where the marketing world stands in 2011. The vetting process on my end will have to be more thorough than it ever has been, adding a whole new layer of scrutiny in my search for #thenextgig.
This should be interesting.
PS: If you are an agency that falls into the first category (the proper model), let’s talk. If you fall into the second, let’s not.
* * *
If you haven’t already, learn how to properly build, manage and measure social media programs at your own pace. Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization will help you avoid common pitfalls of most bogus social media program pitches and help you develop your own business-focused framework instead. Think of it as a 300-page blueprint for anyone looking to build a proper social media program. Download a free chapter here and find out for yourself if it is worth the paper it is printed on. You can also check it out on amazon.com or pick it up at just about any bookstore.
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
These myopic number obsessed CEOs, CMOS, and agency types ad infinitum are doing themselves more harm than good. Building Potemkin villages is a recipe for nothing more than the hall of mirrors effect, nothing more. Gimmie a small, tightly bound little tribe of real proponents. I think we could take over the world, given enough arrows, spears, and blades. These bot guys are just poseurs, Peter principal incarnate.
Right now though, the posers are winning. They are increasingly outbidding everyone else in the industry. Kind of like Walmart killing privately owned small biz by undercutting them at every turn. It’s frustrating.
Olivier, I’m appalled but not surprised that you feel the need to write this. If I may oversimplify your point (No? Sorry, too late)- the emphasis on “campaign” behavior over a program meeting business objectives is just plain wrong. Campaigns have their place of course- as support.
Of course, campaigns are sexy, as are the relatively meaningless numbers like follower count and page Likes. It’s hard to peel off from the sexy, but I have been lucky enough lately to work with clients (and an agency) that manages to keep things focused on sustainable programs and long-term results.
So what is the problem? Easy money? Maybe, tho it’s short money. Laziness? Definitely. A misunderstanding of how social media should fit into a corporate communications program (which in some cases means “at all”). The optimist in me says the last part is changing, slowly. I guess we’ll see
Oh, it’s bound to change. I agree. It’s just not changing fast enough. 😉
The difference between the two models is in strategy, not execution.
Would an agency using the first model still sometimes suggest a Facebook page, a Twitter account or a blog? Would they and the client then need to keep an eye on activity delivered by the agency for the client using metrics like volume of tweets sent?
The reason for the popularity of the second model is that it is a necessary pre-condition to the first model! The way to move from the second to the first is to always be pushing for better quality thinking.
As Olivier gets into in his book, we always need to be moving from:
1. What did the agency do?
2. What was the impact of what they did?
3. How did it contribute to my actual business results?
The key is to build these incrementally rather than moaning about the client wanting to measure stage 1 before they understand stage 2 or 3. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
For a long time since i’ve been following you i’ve felt like you speak for a lot of us.
i’ve only recently gone agency side having been product manager at a football club. Now im understanding various different methods and processes and a lot of them ring continuous alarm bells.
Having an analytics background and a comprehensive data brain-frame (copyrighted) I always tend to ask more questions than most, especially the ‘why, why why’ to processes and requests.
Being client side at a major brand lead me to really understand business objectives and the all important ROI. Nothing could ever be developed as a campaign without proving how we could either a) make money or b) capture data (which to some is as good as money).
Now being agency side, I am seeing a lot of client briefs that don’t really have any longevity or attain to what their business objectives are. A lot of them are really as you put it, because someone said ‘we need to be in social media’.
This of course raises more alarm bells to my data ridden brain as I really feel uncomfortable in most cases developing without clear rationale, thought and insight into the brand, their customer and their business objectives.
Should I feel uncomfortable or should I just strap my guru hat on and talk, charge, talk? That’s what seems to work for most and hence and why this industry is a cesspool of snakes and fakes.
The whole ‘we need to be in social media’ reminds me of seeing all the cool kids with iPad’s. Not knowing why I want one or if I even need one, but I want one. Then when you finally have one, you don’t really know what to do with it, but it looks cool!
That’s how I see social media. Not a lot of brands have a clue why they need social media activity or if it will attend to their company wide objectives; they just follow without thinking and never innovating.
One quote that always comes to mind that a friend told me years ago about social media and the industry… ‘When there’s confusion, there’s money to be made.’
‘When there’s confusion, there’s money to be made.’
Yep.
You know, for once, this is a post I kind of wish the comments didn’t validate. All I can tell you is… patience. It’s still early in the game. They’ll eventually get it.
Hopefully by the time ‘they do get it’ I’ll be out of it.
Out of the bullshit and doing something that I really care about.
Sigh. As someone who’s just leaving an agency to ‘go it alone’ this resonates. A lot. It’s a sad sad fact and one I battle with constantly my friend. I do think you’re right, clients will get wise to the ‘good way’, but until that time will waste countless budget cutting corners.
Yeah, it’s not happening fast enough, is it.
Hi Olivier.. excellent article.. I dont have an agency background… but i get called into corporates a lot to speak to them regarding Twitter… I am continually amazed at what they perceive to be reasons to use Twitter, who will be doing managing their account, and their definitons of success…
I learnt a while ago that they wont hire me, as they would rather pay extortianate prcies to a west end agency and it also has that warm and fuzzy feeling attached to using a top agency….
but I have also learnt that I do have a place.. and that place is sitting on their side of the fence and advising them what questions they need to ask, how to avoid all the Twitter bullishit etc… So i am not their agency but actively look out for them…. works for me and for them and you should see the faces on the agencies when they come in to report on twitter related news….and are introduced to me in the room….. priceless…..
thanks
Mark Shaw
@markshaw
Yeah, I’ve been playing that part a lot too. I enjoy being in the client’s corner. I just wish it didn’t have to spend so much damn time protecting clients from agencies though. It’s ridiculous, know what I mean? The agency should have the client’s best interest in mind. That’s how agencies develop business in the long term: By doing a great job and fostering solid relationships with clients. By being the best in the industry on every front.
It doesn’t make sense that clients need a cop in the room every time they meet with an agency. Something needs to change.
On the agency #2 side of this example, what do you think the percentage is of those who do it intentionally versus those who do it otherwise?
I’m sure you have a lot more insight into this than I do, but from I’ve seen (on the monitoring provider side), agencies aren’t necessarily being malicious, they just don’t know any better. The client says, “We want the Twitter firehose, we want tweets, retweets, we want this bell, we want that whistle, etc, etc.”, and the agency – because they don’t know whether those things are important or not – and because they don’t have the balls to question the client – simply nods and dutifully tries to comply.
There seems to be an “inmates are running the asylum” aspect to the whole thing.
Here here Olivier thank you for articulating what we are experiencing here in the UK too. I wrote about social media been a load of bo**acks a few weeks ago on the same premise.
What I said then, and I still stick by now, is that agencies in your second category are just creating yet another database not a brand community. If you want to sell product quick set up an Ebay shop. If you’re whole strategy is campaign driven, you’re in for a shock, a fall, so get your parachute out!
Brand’s are still monetising and selling the product rather than monetising the community and the customer. Thanks for an insightful post!
Yep. I hope we can turn it around soon.
Hi Olivier, I’ve been struggling to find some really awesome social media campaigns based on the first model and I can’t find any– most of the ones I come across are about fan base, followers, engagement, so some cool examples would be appreciated! Thanks.
Yep. I feel your pain. When I was writing Social Media ROI, my editors kept asking me to add case studies to the book. It was very hard to explain to them that there really weren’t a whole lot of them yet. Most case studies back then were BS.
For good ones, look at what DELL did in the early days of twitter. Look at what Ford has been doing in the US the past 3 years. Starbucks occasionally does a good job too. NPR does fantastic news curation using Twitter. There are examples out there. It’s just that they are very difficult to spot in a sea of made-up case studies based on hot air.
Close, my friend, so close. I thought sure you were going to name the names. Just a thought- doing that would make the search for the next step only half as crowded, no? Good luck as you look to turn the page. Many Emperors, few Clothed.
Well… I know who they are. And the thing that sucks is that many of them wer eon my short lists of companies I wanted to work with. Very disappointing.
If it doesn’t assist the bottom line or further the business goals, it’s a waste of time, energy and resources (financial or otherwise). I fall into the first category, as a solo shop, and have frustrated former clients who wanted me in the second or third shops. I say former because we had to part ways. 🙂
I put a lot of time, sometimes too much, into due diligence to figure out what the client is all about, why they want to “be in social media” and if there’s anything I can do to help them. The same, sadly, applies to PR as well. When I hear “I want to see our name in the paper or in that magazine” and I ask if they want that because they want to engage a certain market, grow their business, etc., only to be blankly looked upon and given the response that their competitors are getting too much attention or “I’m very newsworthy.” I walk away. I can’t help them. Give me a tangible, business goal to tie my efforts to or neither one of us (the client or me) will be successful.
Bleh. Your post is so very accurate and sad at the same time, because there are so many folks doing the unethical, the quick fixes and never once asking the Why? or How it might help the client. Thanks for writing this.
Yep. Here’s something else I haven’t mentioned (the post was already getting too long): Often times, the client has within its structure both models. While the CEO might prefer the first model, the CMO might be working 100% in the second model. In other words, the CMO might be working under false assumptions, or worse, working to make himself look good at the expense of his employer. Unfortunately, he is your contact, and that means that he is the client.
As an agency, you’re now stuck with a client who now chooses to deliberately ignore the first model and tells you to adopt the second because it is in his personal interest to keep his own boss in the dark about what could be done and what should be done. The best model for him is to draw a straight line between himself and quick, easy, flashy “results,” and if you don’t do it, you will lose the account. A chunk of your staff will have to be let go. No one else in the industry will know why you lost the account, just that you did.
What’s an agency to do when a client tells them to cheat for them?
I see this happening quite a bit too. What’s an agency to do in that situation? Well, it has 3 options:
1. Walk away.
2. Do what they’re told.
3. Reach out to the CEO and blow the whistle on what his/her subordinate is attempting to do.
There is no right or wrong way to handle it. It boils down to conscience and personal choice. Each of these paths comes with its own set of justifications, and its own set of consequences. I still struggle with it.
Yep, you nailed it. We’re working against some serious forces at times that want it now and be damned the way you get there. When faced with that situation, it’s difficult to say the least. I can say I’ve done some version of all three of your options, including a plea to coach them through it and help them with their goals and strategic planning. That was equally disastrous.
The company or client wants a quick fix. The truly proper approach doesn’t fit that bill; it’s a process and one that involves real thinking and understanding of ROI, strategy, objectives and interaction across departments. I too struggle with this one because I want to deliver results and I want the client to be happy, gleefully so. However, for me, the personal choice is always led by conscience, and there are usually consequences for that one.
WOW! What a wake-up call!! It’s critical that companies begin to tie their social media analytics to other business metrics; it’s really the only way to determine if the way your business is engaging with your customer is is effective. It’s also important to note that social media represents just one way of engaging with a customers, an important one, but certainly not the only.
Thanks for the heads up.
-Jennifer @collectual
There you go. That’s exactly right.
I don’t want to be the lone voice of dissent in this but isn’t it over simplifying just a tad?
Particularly lumping what I agree is a fundamentally flawed approach together with like-buying (in the UK there are interesting implications re the trade descriptions act on this). They aren’t in the same league of malpractice.
One can be a valid way of de-mystifying social media for a client. The other involves lying to them and billing them for the pleasure.
I don’t think it’s oversimplifying, no.
I also don’t think it falls under the definition of malpractice.
Although one could argue that by inflating the client’s numbers with fake followers, subscribers and traffic, you essentially ruin any chance they have of ever being to properly measure the effectiveness of any social-media-related activity from that point forward. That hurts them in the long run.
I think we can all agree that “Don’t do anything that will harm the client” is a good creed. It’s also a good place to start.
It really is that simple.
Cheers, man.
Can I just print this out and frame this? From a blogger standpoint, we often work with SMB in the role that a traditional agency might. We consult and advise and even help them understand how to create a campaign. It goes back to the same adage. It’s about engagement, not numbers. Social media is not the same as mass media.
Maybe I won’t frame this. Maybe I’ll shout it from the rooftops.
Print away. Shout away. It’s all good.
Bravo, what a perfect exposé, seeing far too much of this and I think it crowds out that excellence in model 1 (the model I alwas have and always will work to) with a quick fix mentality that looks great for a case study but means absolutely nothing for a business
Sadly, yeah. Hoping we see a turnaround soon.
I’m reminded of a story from my consulting days – when I was in-house marketing and PR for a B2B consultancy. A competitor produced a report for a client, to the tune of $50,000. Then, the competitor produced a report for another client, same industry, to the tune of another $50,000. The difference in those two reports was ONE word.
There’s a whole lot of crap in a variety of industries – that’s going to happen anywhere – but what’s scary here is that the discussion is supposed to start with stuff like “where are you now, where do you want to go, how do we get there” but instead are “what’s your budget and how can we spend it for you.”
I wish you the best as you search for the next thing – it’s crazy out there.
“what’s your budget and how can we spend it for you.” Scary.
Thanks for the comment, man. You guys are not making me feel any better about this. 😀
Amen. Amen. And A-Freaking-Men. Unfortunately I too am hearing more and more discussions that involve “buying followers/fans” and it sickens me. It truly does… I dont think calling it unethical does it the justice it deserves. It is flat out lying and its worst. And anyone who suggests it, does it or even thinks about it is a joke in my eyes and someone I never want to do business with.
Remember the old Smith Barney commercials with John Houseman? The famous tagline was “Smith Barney… they make money the old fashioned way. They EARN it.”
The same should be applied here. “[[name of agency]]… they get fans/followers the old fashioned way. They EARN it.”
Great, great post…
All the best,
Steve O
Word. 🙂
“…works with the client as an integrated partner, not just an outsourced service provider”
– These are the words we all need to hear more of – There is far too much reliance on the numbers game – but then that’s been peddled into digital accountability for the last 10+ years by media agency buying mentality. Numbers = increased probable success, cpc, cpm, cpa.. reach, frequency… la la la etc.
The real value of a social strategy, as you have rightly pointed out, is to align as a partner looking for longer term business success. The beauty of this is the digital strategy aligns far closer to the business strategy and starts to support or help solve other goals, such as customer support, resource management, staff empowerment, research – even as a branding channel, shifting KPIs. Much more than just ‘marketing reach – or sadly click farming as the case may be.
Let’s face it the numbers game isn’t going to be jacked it in tomorrow. But more awareness of digital/social and it’s wider business benefits – can’t come soon enough for client and agency alike. Internal education is just as important on both sides of the fence.
Absolutely. We’re on the same page. Cheers, man.
YEAH, thank you, you are much more articulate on paper than I am.
So can we just send this post to every CEO and CMO in the country.
Can we start calling out folks who go to odesk and post $10.00 for 10,000 likes or followers? I have been so tempted and still might.
Why is it so darn hard to do things the right way? HMMMM isn’t that what screwed up the financial industry- short cuts, greed and lust for profit at all costs?
So now what?
Now, maybe we create a code of ethics, the way WOMMA did.
There are so many advantages to doing social media legitimately why bother with buying “hot air?”
Simple: Because hot air is easy to measure. You can do absolutely nothing but buy traffic (it’s essentially what it amounts to) and turn up with great social media “metrics.”
If you’re a guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing and someone tells you “you can be a champion and no one will ever know the difference, just give me $50K and we’re all set,” the temptation is pretty strong to just go the easy way. It’s cheating sure, but you can always justify that a) you’ll get to keep your job, so it is out of necessity, b) everyone else is doing it, so why not you, and c) if it makes the client happy to see those pointless numbers go up, why rock the boat?
It’s a vicious cycle that needs to stop, and both clients and agencies – together – need to put an end to it.
Great post, and great comments above – thanks. Perhaps something is in the blogosphere air: the 2nd “coming clean/dirty little secret” kind of post in almost as many days that I’ve read…the other being @ZachBussey’s “Social Media Influencers Suck” (http://bit.ly/qlsyFf). Yet, with both yours and Zach’s posts, I still feel a sense of optimism, if only for the reason that you’re ‘out here’ writing and talking of such things. Thanks again.
Thanks for pointing me to that, and for the kind words. 🙂
Well laid out Olivier, and I’ve definitely seen examples of the same model. My biggest concern is that they will taint clients who catch on, and those clients will “broad brush” label even the good agencies. The same thing happened throughout IT before that bubble burst. If you had a pulse, recruiters would hire you and put you on a job at an incredible bill rate. Worse were the independents. They could take an engagement for 6-12 months and milk it, then get let go after missing deliverables. However, they hopped these engagements for probably 3 years before their reputation truly preceded them.
That was a lot of money wasted, and put in their pockets, in those three years. We will now see similar results in the social media agency realm.
Yep. The same thing has been going on in the so-called “social media space” with agencies, consultants and various types of firms essentially delivering hot air to unsuspecting clients. It’s been my worry also, and I have watched with frustration some pretty serious hacks and charlatans climb in prestige and recognition while many of the folks who actually know what they are talking about struggled to get whatever small projects they could.
At this point, there is almost no way for a client to know the real thing from the posers. The latter have infiltrated so many agencies, so many firms, so many business networks, so many publishers, even, that they seem absolutely legit. They speak at very large events, can claim to have worked with very large clients, have books to sell from reputable publishers and seem absolutely real.
And yet, sit across a table from them and talk shop, and they are completely fucking clueless about the most basic aspects of how social works operationally for a business, large or small. They can’t even speak intelligently about how to tie basic business measurement to a social media program.
So yeah, when you tell people that you work in social media, get ready for business execs to assume that you are little more than the internet’s version of a used car salesman. It’s very frustrating.
Bang on the money, and I have forwarded to some of my clients.
I think there is a 3rd side to this story that is missing. That is the case of the brand manager who knows better, but is forced to act against their companies own best interests by corporate culture.
Many of my clients have top brand managers who know the difference between a “follower” and a “customer”.
The conversation is always predictable. “Forget drive to retail, I know they’ll never visit our store, but global gave us specific targets and won’t listen to me. If I don’t hit the targets I don’t bonus this quarter and I’ll get replaced. Get me my 10k new fans”.
I don’t know what scenario is most tragic. The ignorant client and predatory agency, or the informed client forced against a wall and the agency that needs to find the balance for them. Before you ask we do find that balance, because we are that “right kind” of agency, but it shouldn’t be a juggling competition.
Excellent point. I’ve run into that also.
In this case, I don’t know what the best course of action is. If the agency is bold enough and has the capabilities, I see this as an opportunity to reach up the ladder and talk to the people setting the targets. They need to know what’s going on. The company needs to understand that what it is doing will ultimately hurt it.
If the agency isn’t bold, or for some reason the client still insists on pursuing this path even knowing where it leads, it’s really a matter of personal choice for the agency principals. I wouldn’t blame them for walking away from the account (or at least the project) if it offends their conscience. If you are a proponent of “First do no harm – to the client,” then you may have to turn the project down.
Having said that, there is perhaps a third option, which is to propose two choices to the client:
1. Deliver what the client has asked for.
2. Offer an alternative and outline the way it should be done and why. (My book might actually be pretty helpful here.)
Same cost between 1 and 2. Same general timeline. One gets them their targets but nothing will come of it, the other may hit south of their targets but will actually result in real results.
Get the client to sign off on the choice they really want. At the very least, it absolves you, as an agency, from whatever comes next. If the client ever comes back and says that these followers were worthless, you can point them to the documents you presented and remind them that they chose this path in spite of all of your recommendations. If the press or the general public ever attacks you for having bought followers for a client, you can always show that you advised the client not to go that route, but ultimately did what your client asked you to do.
It doesn’t fix the problem, but at least it makes the playing field a little clearer for everyone.
Any investment is a numbers game. More is better and bigger is stronger. If you consider marketing an investment, then there’s a whole pre-conversation that needs to happen where the client gets a better education as it relates to the purpose (call it a strategy) of their social media endeavors.
Yep.
Thank you for such an amazing article. Working for an integrated agency that deals primarily with small brands, we’re constantly asked to make things happen just for the numbers (and without deep pockets it’s even more self-defeating) It’s against our instincts and ethics. Nice to be in good company.
Sorry. yeah, It’s a common problem right now. Hopefully not for too much longer.
I think this is a great post but a bit naive. Let me preface that I have not one but TWO copies of your book and am a huge fan. I say it’s naive because this post assumes that said client has sales, customer service, marketing and planning all seamlessly integrated and that it can track social media activity directly to in-store purchases and lead generation. I think social media can help but a major investment in it often comes as a larger enterprise-wide push for more marketing (so maybe it’s coupled with more radio/TV, in-store ads, etc.) so it’s tricky to specifically measure social media’s impact on growth or F.R.Y. And, it assumes the client can reorient its sales tracking to measure this. Finally, it begs a host of benevolent agencies that will simply say “no” to clients looking for increases in FB fans or Twitter followers – watching as valued business is driven into the arms of unscrupulous agencies willing to give the client what the asked for. I agree wholeheartedly with the overall goal of the post, it just seems a bit Utopian for me right now. No one will be happier than me when this day comes, though (well, except you).
Valid points, Marshall. Every one of them.
For me, it’s all a process. None of my clients have ever been flawlessly integrated as i wish they could be. Part of the reason is the absence of technology and systems that allow for this, and the other is just human nature: politics, resistance to change, imperfect operational models, attachment to ineffective procedures, fear, etc. Having said that, that utopic model is always the end result I am after. Sometimes, I can help the client get pretty close, sometimes not. We all evolve at our own pace. It’s a direction, at any rate. 😉
I also see the dilemma of the agency being forced into the second model because the client demands it. I’ve addressed this in the comments already. There are options: Walk, accept, or accept but under certain conditions. Check it out when you get a chance.
PS: I’m an idealist. Even if my utopic business model never sees the light of day, I’ll keep working to get businesses as close to it as possible.
Cheers.
Thanks for the reply Olivier. We always need the optimists to show us the way – that’s why I love your work. I’m a Social Media ROI evangelist and it’s nice to hear from you personally.
A subject after me own heart, Olivier. Thank you thank you for not doing what so many do and writing a “why agencies suck” post. While it’s true that a lot of agencies do it wrong (just like a lot of architects, SEO peeps, bloggers, chefs, and plumbers do it wrong), not all agencies are scumbags.
Our agency’s philosophy is that you have to do the research first. Even if a company is super hot to try to do social media, as you note, you want to make sure that they will a) have a good plan in place b) be ready for any bumps in the road and c) actually benefit. Yes, it’s true, some agencies want their clients to succeed!
We always say that the first step is to look at some of the big platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin, etc and see if there are any competitors, customers, or even prospects there. The reality is that for many industries, social media is a stretch right now. In fact, we work in some industries where people are saying, “you can take print out of my cold, dead hands.” If your competitors aren’t there, your prospects aren’t there, and your customers aren’t there, who are you going to be social with?
Without research, it’s all up for grabs. You’ll end up chasing numbers which just won’t come. You’ll end up sending out information you don’t really want to send out. On and on it goes.
Research may seem like a roadblock, but we strongly position it as a life jacket. It’s a shame that so many agencies have lost their way in these kinds of scenarios. It gives us all a bad name!
Olivier, I’ve read your stuff for a long time now and always enjoy exchanging tweets or comments. We are a very small agency but one who strives to fall into the first category… want to talk?
Spot on !
Great blog post, keep them comin
Reference material. I’m forwarding this to every one of my clients and prospects where I had the discussion about the idle metrics of ‘number of fans’.
Music to my ears. 🙂
Bien joué et bonnes nouvelles! Surely this is useful to both the ignorants and agencies to be more attracted by the work that requires getting the real benefits of scale. Call it human weakness, we may always be tempted by a quicker and painless ride to overcome lagger status..
Hopefully, giving this some visibility will make us realize the stakes and consequences. We’ll see if it makes a difference. Cheers.
[FR] Un autre excellent billet Olivier. Tu cognes tellement fort sur le clou de l’arrimage des médias sociaux en soutien aux objectifs d’affaires que ton message devrait être bien compris et intégré. Malheureusement, il y a encore trop d’agences qui fonctionnent avec le 2e modèle. On leurre les clients avec des mesures de “médias”… Tout cela devra nécessairement changer car les têtes vont commencer à tomber ( côté agence et côté client).
Merci encore de remettre les pendules à l’heure et bonne chance dans tes futurs projets.
Cordialement,
Patrice Leroux
Merci, Patrice. Tes billets ne sont pas trop nuls non plus. 😉
Thank you Olivier for drawing such a clean line in the sand about this obvious divide that seems to have grabbed 2011 by the horns. I literally left the HBR ROI article to read the latest on your blog, and boy and I glad I did.
This post was painfully refreshing for 2 reasons:
1) it reminded me about why I started a little agency in the first place – to help businesses grow using tools that brought new capabilities to connect with their consumers at genuine levels of engagement for long term, valuable relationships that the corporate world wasn’t ready to embrace a few years ago
2) that we’re up against bigger agencies that grew faster with more capital and play to a totally different tune with clients.
Sigh.
Thankfully, our small agency falls on the first side, organically working with a client from the first conversation exploring clear objectives with them, and, like you and others who commented pointed out, often (in our case small biz and even medium biz) clients don’t have clear objectives or goals. They come with a sense of obligation to develop social media. Well, at least they’ve arrived at our doorstep and we can educate them on the numerous facets of social media (as a part of a clear marketing strategy) outside of sheer audience size and get them to a level of understanding and possibility that generally brings about passion and commitment in them.
Thanks again Olivier for dedicating so much of your time to bringing truth where truth needs to be told. Hopefully the shift will grab 2012 by the balls and swing things back around.
Cheers,
Amber
@AllStagesMktg
Outstanding. If everyone would follow your example, I could dedicate my blog to… photography, or Nutella recipes. Eh, maybe someday.
Thanks for the kind words. 🙂
Thanks Olivier! Your kind words are much appreciated as well. I vote for Nutella recipes! Btw, your Basics of Social Media ROI SlideShare presentation has been on our site for 2+ years. It’s great!
This agency-client problem isn’t limited to social media. What about the PR stunts that generate lots of coverage, yet ultimately take the business nowhere? Or the competitions that produce an unrepeatable sales spike? Or the price promotions that cheapen the brand? Or the ad campaign that wins awards but fails to drive sales?
I wonder whether some of the marketing managers who, as you rightly highlight, don’t ‘get’ social, are equally guilty of going after the wrong metrics in other areas of marketing and communications?
Yes, building a ‘socialised business’ is completely different to running social media campaigns. All agreed on that. But there is still room for campaigns. And for every bad one, we can probably find a good one.
It’s possible that a campaign that takes a brand from 7,000 followers to 100,000 is actually a very good campaign. The only way to find out is to delve deeper into how those 100,000 followers’ perceptions of the brand have shifted, and ultimately whether this results in actions beyond the ‘like’/’follow’.
Personally I like a mix of tactics within a clear social strategy. Yes, proper conversations and meaningful interaction – but there is also room for competitions, stunts, ‘push’ marketing, etc.
Test and learn to achieve the right blend for your business.
Cheers for the top-quality debate, as ever.
Adam
And – just one more thought – perhaps an analogy for another post:
Politics.
I mean as in Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Labour. Modern politics is driven by the short term – a campaign mentality. Long term change is much harder. Brand managers switch jobs every few years. Prime Ministers and Presidents work on 4/5-year terms. Playing the long game is not incentivised and often requires glitzy ‘quick wins’ along the way to keep the leader in their job.
This is a GREAT article and explains exactly the issues we are dealing with as marketers in social media. I had a celebrity client pursue me for my services (I’m still getting emails from him) & everything was going well until his “agent” became involved. I spent hours & hours on my proposal outlining the social media marketing campaign only to have the agent say to me, “We’d like you to get his Twitter followers up to 100k.” That’s it. No implementation of strategy, no Facebook Fan Page, no LinkedIn, no YouTube channel…. nothing! I was DUMBFOUNDED! I thought, you are the agent of celebrities who all have accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and you don’t know how social media marketing works???!!! I declined the offer (would have looked DAMN good on my website to have this guy as a client) because I knew it would reflect poorly on my reputation to not “do it right.” Most of my clients don’t have a clue about what I do for them and the sad part is, they’re so busy with other aspects of their businesses that they don’t have time for me to explain it or teach them.
Unfortunately what you say is true Oliver. Business owners can get easily “taken” by the second type of agency. Fortunately for me my reputation continues to bring me new clients. They still don’t understand what I do though! 🙂
It’s the sweatshops of the social media world, manufacturing shoddy merchandise and inflating the cost to the ignorant “consumer.”
I have had the bad experiences, still reeling. I have been generally dismayed at the social media- agency experience. Trust is at a premium. Sad
Great article~And to think the Frank Baum wrote about the quest for “A Heart,” A Brain”, “The Nerve” when he was 15 years old. Numbers mean nothing to me. Why is engagement such a novel concept?
Oliver, this is excellent and resonates strongly with my frustrations. Part of the problem is expanded beyond Social Media as Adam notes above. Sadly, many marketers and agencies especially don’t understand strategy. They jump to tactics. We have worked with people in the past who wanted to sell Social Media into their clients they were former CMOs and pretty much told us to get rid of all ‘strategy’ mentions in our proposals. We included them, but just under a different name.
Strategy is always a difficult sell, social media or not. Research (listening to what people are saying about your brand in Social Media) is an even harder sell. I think part of the reason for this is most people simply aren’t strategic. We use Myers Briggs and Discover Your Strengths to determine if our prospective employees have the “strategic” gene. I don’t recall how many people Myers Briggs states are “N”s, but it’s much less than half the population.
I think the second reason this is true is because traditional media focuses on the campaign. What shiny object, e.g. contest, can we do hang all our traditional media on? We try to get clients to focus on the value of setting a strategic foundation for social media by understanding their target audience and their objectives and then focusing on our Conversation Guides (strategic documents that articulate the conversations they want to be in Social Media or should start), but I find that many CMOs who have little Social Media knowledge just focus on the campaign/contest/big idea/etc.
I’m hoping you’re right that it will change soon!
P.S. This was my first introduction to your blog. I am looking forward to future posts.
Brilliant post. Having worked on both sides, all I can say the blame is to be shared equally. Clueless brand managers running after the next shiny thing need to take a big rap for this.
I can’t believe I just found your site Olivier. This is an article that really needed to be written. I have been trying to tell clients and colleagues that business objectives are what really matter in social and those are different for every business. We do social for several different clients and it’s a different animal for each of them, depending on what they are really trying to do.
I really like Amber’s comment about her agency’s efforts. I also have a small agency and it has taken a long time to get past what a lot of executive think are the important things (likes, followers, etc.) and get down to what they really want to accomplish with social media. We’ve found that some just aren’t ready for it, and others are too scared to really dive into it as far as you have to in order to make it worth the time and money involved. I look forward to seeing more of your insights Olivier.
Thanks Michael! I’ll go find’ya on twitter as well. It’s a tough path, but a much more worthy one to stay on. I never lose passion on this path! We’re all for White Hat tactics across the board.
What a great article! We compete with the second type of agency all the time and consistently win. What it takes is a little time to educate the client on what they really want. While they think they want the 100,000 followers, what they really want is activity on their social media sites. 1,000 engaged users can generate 10x the activity that 100,000 “paid for” followers/fans will ever generate.
The 2nd type of agency will continue to be around until more brands understand how to really use social media and what it can really do for them. That is just a matter of time in my opinion, as once a brand has their 100,000 followers and they see no difference in anything, they start to understand that it is quality over quantity.
As the founder of The Big Fat Mouth, a <a href=http://www.thebigfatmouth.com social media agency dedicated to educating clients and showing themhow to use social media effectively, I love to compete with the agency 2 types. When you arm the client with the right questions, Agency 2 always fails because of their inability to answer them.
Great name. 😀
Great article. I work for a B2B PR and social media agency in the UK having worked on social media client side. This article has really opened my eyes to how a lot of social media agencies must be working.
Many of our clients want to do social media but our very cautious of the benefits with it being B2B, we are taking them down the route of utilising social media to fit in with their existing aims and objectives, enhance their websites and to help bring to life and reuse content that they are often already producing but not really doing anything with. Certainly not selling them the idea that they can get 1000s of followers on X,Y,Z.
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