Res Publica's Gabriel McDowell takes to the AdNews Soapbox

Why creative and digital agencies get social media wrong

Remember Naked and the Witchery debacle? That attempt at manipulating both social and mainstream media demonstrated quite convincingly that some of our creative advertising counterparts are not the best equipped to handle the cut and thrust of social media tasks for marketers. The best PR practitioners are.

To this point, research conducted recently by the Meltwater Group showed Australian marketers have got their social media priorities inside out.

Meltwater found a majority of Australian marketing executives value enthusiasm over skill when assigning their social media responsibilities. It's not a good sign - 58% of marketers said they opt for enthusiastic employees to manage their social media projects while just 29% prefer specific social media skills.

There are many, many pitfalls to this approach. For starters, the person responsible for the frontline of a corporation/brand's social media is likely to be interacting regularly with vocal consumers. They'll also be monitored by, and interacting with, journalists who trawl the social media space looking for stories to feed the voracious appetite of the 24/7 news cycle. Similarly, competitors and pressure groups, likely to be inherently hostile, will be an avid audience of a company's social media activity.

The internet has empowered consumers with a voice so corporations are right to engage via the medium rather than ignore it. Smart companies know that surrendering some control and allowing consumers and employees to converse with them is the right approach.

Equally, progressive companies realise that even though the social media process can't be totally controlled, it needs to be managed. Dealing with journalists on a day-to-day basis means that PR professionals are entirely comfortable with the idea that communication cannot be controlled. Nevertheless, the best are highly skilled at influencing and shaping the dialogue. In this respect they have a tremendous advantage over their creative and digital advertising counterparts.

PR has always struggled to get marketing directors to take it seriously - when they've got a multi-million dollar budget for media placement, their PR spend seems insignificant. But as the cost of making mistakes in the social media space becomes more evident, and the benefit of getting it right becomes more apparent, clients will invest more in this area. If they're going to flourish in this space, marketers will either have to adopt a PR mindset themselves or hire someone who already has one.

Clearly, if the Meltwater survey is right, many marketers simply don't get the internet – at least the social media aspect of it.  It might be time for some robust debate in the industry about which communication discipline should be leading the charge.

Gabriel McDowell
Res Publica