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by Julian Cole

on May 13

Don't trust an advertising agency with your digital media

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Social media has become a key component of any online venture these days. It's allowed for people to maintain and create relationships over the internet. So far, advertising agencies have used social media for people to create relationships with the brand only as long as it happens in the three months that their campaign is running.

Offline you would not have a relationships with a good friend by keeping in contact with them for three months and then switching off your mobile phone, email and all other forms of communication for nine months and then starting the relationship up again.

So why do advertising agencies think it is okay to do this in social media?

Although you may think it's a great idea to run a MySpace/Facebook page for a fictional character from your advertising campaign, what happens when the campaign ends? What will the brand advocate think when you communicate with them for three months and then totally ignore them? What do your customer think when they see your MySpace Page that hasn't been updated for 12 months?

There are a number of social media channels that present a cost effective way to have a high involvement with your most passionate customers. If you are going to start a blog, Facebook page, twitter feed, do not look to your short term tunneled vision advertising agency for help. But then who should you trust with your social media strategy?

All is not lost!

The Australian online marketing community is built around the mantra of helping everyone out. There are a number of forums where you can ask for help on how to get involved in social media. Marketingmag.com.au even has one :-) A great forum with a lot of the brightest digital marketers as active members, so you could always ask for advice there

Practice what I preach

I am such a strong believer in how easy it is to run a social media campaign, that I will show you in a number of posts over the next few months how easy and cost effective it is to set up a social media channel for your company. I will do this with a real company and product, so here's the deal Marketingmag.com.au readers:

If you would like me to help your company set up a social media channel, send an email to Scott, the Editor here at Marketingmag.com.au. I'll pick one of your companies and over a series of posts I'll detail my efforts to develop a social media strategy, which will include advice on:

  • setting up a blog
  • optimizing that blog with RSS feeds, Google Analytics, Technorati etc
  • getting involved in the online community that already exists around your brand/product/market

So there's the challenge people. Send your emails explaining why your company needs a social media strategy and you never know, you could be picked.

If you also have advice for the community on how best to employ a social media strategy, why not check out the forum discussion dedicated especially to that exact task - see what we did there?

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4 Comments

maxsearch
  • Wrote on 29 Jun, at 04:18AM
Nice post I like ning as well you can build your own social network

Cheers
Daryl
OnlineMarketingSydne
  • Wrote on 18 Sep, at 12:29PM
Where do you go to see the results?
Timmwardion
  • Wrote on 9 Dec, at 11:12AM
I talk a lot to my clients about the difference between programmes and campaigns. A lot of the things we do in digital are programmes (SEO, SEM, Website - and yes, social media) whereas if you come from a traditional background you are used to campaigns. Understanding this difference is critical.

If you treat your digital as a campaign a website looks very expensive and youll probably skimp on it in order to allocate more cash to the elements of the campaign that you feel are more likely to deliver. What this probably means is that it wont deliver at all.

If, however, you treat it as a programme intended to deliver for a long time it starts looking very cheap, and therefore youre more likely to have a proper go at it and subsequently get a huge increase in ROI.
Sydneydreamer
  • Wrote on 23 Oct, at 03:36PM
Still awaiting the examples or was this just a once of blog with no follow through...

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