How Will a Social Media Agency Work With My Current Agency?
February 1, 2008
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Today I’m going to dive into the first question in part of the Marketer’s Foray into Social Media : How will a Social Media Agency Work with my Current Agency?
First off, we have received this question numerous times, mainly from companies with existing PR and Advertising agencies who still quite haven’t figured out what the role of a social media agency is, or the relationship this type of agency will have with their existing agencies.
To answer this question - a social media agency should work seamlessly with these agencies, almost as additional partners rather than competition. After all, the work of the social media agency is to not re-brand a company, but to translate the current existing branding or messaging (from the advertising agency and PR agency) into a campaign that is appropriate for social media and its audiences.
With that being said, how we work with the company and these agencies is entirely up to a company’s budget, current resources, and social media marketing objectives. That’s why below, I’ve outlined some ways that Ignite has worked with companies and agencies to give a better picture of how a social media agency really works.
1. Consultant: Playing the role of a consultant, we’ve worked with companies to outline the specific social media strategies and tactics that will help achieve company objectives. At this point, we may even look outside the realm of social media marketing and into the applications of social media as it could be used internally or for customer service.
2. Trainer: As a social media trainer - we work with a company’s already existing resources and train internal staff on how to use social media tools (effectively). Typically this type of relationship is good for companies who have the current staff to employ social media, but don’t have the budget dedicated to hire an agency.
3. Executioner: This is when most of our clients seek our services: when they need a social media partner who will develop strategies and provide the resources and staff that they need to execute them. In this case we sell our team’s time and expertise in this field, which often saves internal resources. It also is a safer way for a company to enter social media, as it makes us a social media scapegoat if anything goes wrong.
I’m sure that as we progress in social media, these roles will change even more. For those who have worked with a social media agency, feel free to share your experience.
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6 Responses to “How Will a Social Media Agency Work With My Current Agency?”
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Lisa, another great post in your on going series
I have noticed that when we are working with traditional PR Agencies they have wanted us to assume all three roles that you discussed. Consult on what specific strategy will work best for their client. Then they want us to train their staff to implement portions of the strategy; but then still leave big portions of execution to us. Thanks again for sharing look forward to the rest of the series 
@ Martin - Thanks for sharing some of your thoughts. I hope you’ll continue to share your experiences at Martin Bowling. In this space there is definitely a unique working relationship with every client
I am a social media consultant and one of the things I offer is a 6 week training course called “blogger bootcamp”. Blogs are a tremendous social media tool and to have a blog that accomplishes what a client wants usually requires some basic, intermediate, and advanced training.
Great post.
How much involvement from the client do you guys require? If you are the executioner how often do you need decision makers from the company to be involved and helping define the voice of the campaign?
@Kin Lane - As you can imagine this depends entirely on the client and can vary drastically by project. Most clients who are relatively new to this space or have a product that has legal restrictions for their corporate communications, tend to be more heavily involved.
Overall, we typically require more upfront involvement from a client , as this is the time where we are doing intensive amounts of research and brainstorming to make sure that the campaign is on target and on strategy.
Lisa, great post! I especially like the role as trainer. I’m a big supporter of teaching a company how to do something instead of merely doing it for them. Great post!