Good intelligence — essentially knowing your competition — is essential for success in business. One great resource comes from MediaPost. I have a number of alerts that keep me up to date on deals, mergers and new technology. I wanted to point out a very good post from their Social Media Insider Blog. The subject is one I’ve mentioned before: Blogger’s Block — And Other Ways Agencies Aren’t Walking The Walk Of Social Media.
Agencies promoting blogs and social media suffer from execution problems. Client projects either miss the whole point of blogging and/or don’t offer any in-house examples. The following quote sums it up:
I particularly liked this quote in the report from Eric Kintz, a Hewlett-Packard marketing exec and blogger: “I think they [agencies] are somewhat helping. But they need to show how social media has helped them further their own agenda. So if an ad agency comes to me, I’d ask if they have their own page on a social network site? Are they posting videos on YouTube? Do they have their own blog? And how has it helped them in their own business?”
Perhaps there have to be a few more posts like this before agencies truely “get it.” Why is this important? Can’t agencies sit on their laurels and enjoy creative work or content management systems? No. Social applications provide numerous benefits, most notably customer research and engagement. For companies like Dell, this information has tremendous value.
There is a technological component as well (my own opinion). As we move towards future Web applications, such as predictive modeling and the semantic Web, information about relationships, products and services becomes important.
I’ve challenged a few agencies in the legal space to start a blog — a true blog, with conversational elements. None have acted on it.
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