Since this story crashed my server and upset a few other companies on it, i thought it might be nice to do a little follow-up post using some of the comments and ideas i was given via Twitter on DM and on the blog. Now most of you were pretty ok with this, which although nice also left me wondering a few things;
1) You RT’d it because someone else did but did not read it
2) You hate your boss and wanted to annoy him
3) You really want things to change
(ps: those peeps i asked to RT the story are exempt from the choices above, as i annoy you enough)
Not everyone liked the article, infact Paul fabretti from letsgabba.com thought it was “utter tosh list of incorrect rubbish” as did Steve Downs from Juicedigital.co.uk who left me a comment. PS steve, that site of yours needs some SEO, check those URLS (talk to @jaamit, he will sort you out).
This was in response to Mr Fabretti who had added a comment explaining why “it was utter tosh in 3 reasons”
Now, i did answer them back on the blog, but i do think that this is something that could do with a discussion.. even if we end up running around in circles. At the moment, social media has no real standard, it is a free for all.. and this is cool exceptwhen it comes for it being commercialised.. this is when the issues start.
So with no further ado .. Let the battle commence
The Questions: -
1. Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
2. Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
3. Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
So i am collecting a bunch of responses from people within the industry which.. should be interesting at the very least (stay tuned..)
The Answers :-
killer bunnie (freelance social media bod and radio 4 fan) says:
ok Paul..
Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
1) Yes Yes Yes .. brands should run their own social network updates… YES!!! and if that means that you miss out on £700 a day for tweeting about something you don’t know about YES. I know it sounds crazy but if you are running the accounts under their brand name, it is not social media (social media is about conversations with the individual) NOT an agency.
Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
2) So your way of billing for social media works for you, great. So within the montly allotted time you get to – build solid relationships with a chosen network, train your client up to be savvy on said network, report all stats to do with a campaign, run all blogging outreach, update any internal resources supporting the campaign every few hours, run all of your community mapping and make sure that your are telling your client to target the correct platforms and influencers, build a solid community around a clients blog, twitter, facebook or other networks, run smaller promotions like competitions etc.. (so your clients on are on a retainer of £30,000 a month?)
Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
3) If you had read it, i said it can work if done right…. my experience is that it weakens the links of communication understanding and puts up more barriers.. for someone like Vodafone, perhaps…but an SME?
I do follow all of your points, but it is all coming from a ‘money’ angle not a social media angle
Paul Fabretti (Director at Social Media Agency, Gabba) says:
Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
1. I still disagree with this, although to a lesser extent than other points. As I mentioned, the client will always be best-placed to handle this kind of activity. TWhilst the agency may have an innate understanding of the business (a depth of understanding that allows them to speak on their behalf through press releases), the client will always know more about the business and the people within.
But if, as you say, this post is about your experience with small SME’s is the business owner likely to take on social media on with everything else going on? Many small businesses struggle with seeing how PR fits into the mix, let alone giving it the time to do its work.
The point about not knowing anything about a client’ business is an irrelevant one. Whether it is social media, pr, advertising, whatever, any firm that embarks on anything without at first getting to know the clients business wants binning straight away.
Further, to suggest that £700 (or whatever) a day for tweeting something you don’t know about is to undermine the value that many agencies bring – namely that Twitter might not be appropriate, and secondly, no activity whatsoever should be undertaken until it has been proven what channels and topics are relevant.
Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
2) As far as the billing goes, yes, it works very well for us. Maybe that is why we work with the clients we do. Short-term, frequently updated retainers ensure that we have a degree of security (financially), but that the needs of the client can change according to how well/popular the activity is going. If things are working well, the client knows that we need to spend more time on the activity (to derive the maximum value for both client and their customer). If, as we do in many cases, try and bring the client in to take over our activities, the short-term retainer ensure that they have and will not be paying form something they are dong themselves.
As for the retained actions per month, this is carefully costed according to what we believe the content plan is/would/could be (but amendable if necessary). Whichever way you look at the retainer (its value or the tasks involved in delivering it), there simply has to be some commercial restraints that are based on what and when actions need delivering. As nice and social media-y as it would be to be able to spend 24/7 on customer engagement/community management, understanding the time and posting behaviours of a client’;s customer means that you can always deliver when it is relevant. Your client’s customers are night owls? Let the account teams come in later to stay later.
It is a retainer, not a restrainer, with the customer and their interactions at the heart of it.
Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
3. I am sure there as many multi-agency horror stories as there are good ones, but I agree, the more there are the more problems they cause.
At the same time, part of the problem is that everyone thinks they own a bit of social media and is therefore trying to twist things to suit their own capabilities – which inevitably means that the most important person, the client and their customer get forgotten about.
As per your tweet, i am glad you posted what you did. You are totally right, at least it is giving a chance for people to have their say, whatever they think!
OK Claire – here you go:
Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
1. Disagree. As long as you’re transparent about it. And anyway, isn’t that always the case? If you’re a marketing executive called Michelle working for Pepsi and tweeting as Pepsi not Michelle because you’re being paid to do so – what’s the difference? Why should I, as a long-standing marketing partner to Pepsi, be in any worse a position to represent the company than Michelle?
Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
2. Really don’t care. If you’re working for someone you should get paid for it. Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly who cares? The real debate should be about the validity of being paid for results – which leads you on to monitoring and evaluation of social media campaigns and what ‘results’ actually means. I could go on all night, but it’s Bayern v Man U tonight.
Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
3. You having a laugh? Turkeys and Christmas come to mind. But really, why not? My view is it’s like building a house. The architect has a job and so has the builder. A good architect will consult a builder as he/she’s putting together the plans and the builder will continually check with the architect as he goes along. A client marketing dept is like the architect creating a brand marketing strategy and the social media agency the builder turning the strategy into reality. The client can get good advice on strategy from the agency and vice versa. Better stop that analogy there before I start describing Twitter as cement or some such bollocks.
So there you go. Thanks for the advice on the website Claire, but as social media gurus we really don’t need SEO…
Peter Rowe (@Looks_Serious on Twitter) says:
Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
1. Agree. I think if you are ever “found out” it will dent the brands image. People are not naive enough to believe that a brand will “Tweet” or “FaceBook” the absolute truth – They assume “spin”, or at least they should, but think if you are setting yourself up as Brand X, then it should be somebody in Brand X’s organisation taking responsibility for the responses, and more importantly pro-actively building relationships on-line. To not have that seemingly brand-to-consumer direct link seems to sour the relationship?
Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
2. Not sure about this one? When I worked in an agency we billed for a certain level of work per month, i.e. 5 x Press Releases, 2 x Feature Articles etc etc. and charged a retainer for that. At the end of the year when we presented our activities back to the client, and tried to justify through overperformance why they should accept a huge hike in the retainer. I don’t see why Social Media couldn’t be part of that mix, but I’d be uncomfortable going for a “Pay-per-Tweet”, or “Pay-per-Friend” model and as in my answer to 1 above, I’m un comfortable with an agnecy running it.
Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
3. Disagree. I think that if you’re going to do “social media” you should do it well, and a third party agency should assist in designing and guiding your strategy. That way you’ll avoid the “schoolboy errors”. However, as in my answer to 1 they shouldn’t be running it on a day-to-day basis.
Eb Adeyeri (Digital PR director at LEWIS PR) says:
Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
1) Agree but to a point.
You can’t run anything without the clients buy in and approval. Product launches, events and yes… social networks. Often you’ll find that clients either don’t have the time or resource to invest in building up a social media presence which is why they bring in an agency or consultancy to help with the process. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with this but where it breaks down is if the client has washes its hands of the process entirely. And this is what separates an agency (yes sir/ma’am, we’ll take the £700 a month a tweet for you) from a consultancy (before we take your £700 a month, who are we trying to influence and why, what’s our end goal and do you realise you’ll have to spend xx hours a week even if even you don’t know what a tweet is).
Social media gurus get the reputation they deserve because often they can’t see or advise on the business objectives of the client and explain how having a million followers on twitter will help them achieve them.
Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
2) Disagree but again to a point (I know how Vince ‘I sit on the fence’ Cable feels like now)
There is nothing wrong in billing for social media activity within a monthly retainer as long as it fits with a wider PR/marketing campaign. Personally I just don’t think social media for business works if it’s done in isolation to the other disciplines. Again it comes down to carefully explaining to clients what they’ll get for their monthly retainer so they feel they are getting value for money. Clients are happy to pay PR agencies monthly retainers to draft and distribute press releases to journalists, build and foster relationships and expect a set number of cuttings/interviews. Is is too far a stretch to think they will/should pay some more to do the same for a twitter or Facebook audience?
Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
3) Ok I have to disagree with this one (although you do quantify that it’s not on all occasions)
The best agencies know where their expertise starts and, more importantly, ends. Bringing a third party to within some capacity is not necessarily a bad thing if handled right. But as you say, if you allow a third party to ‘ruin’ your client’s campaign and the relationship with your client then perhaps PR/social media consultancy isn’t for you. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, any agency in charge of running a social media campaign for a client should have the experience of the business and strength of character to know what’s right and wrong for the campaign.
Love the post. It’s great to read something is honest and provokes a reaction rather than the thousands of article that pretty much recycle the same old stuff.
Heather Buckley (Managing Director siliconbeachtraining) says:
Hi Claire, I’ve enjoyed reading the opinions from you and your social media guru friends 
I completely agree with your argument to be honest, but for what it’s worth, here’s my perspective…
Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
1. Completely agree. That’s surely the whole point in social media?! As we do social media training this risks sounding promotion-ey, but I think the market for Digital Agencies is going to shift towards Social Media Training (or, the role that Digital Agencies play is going to shift).
There is no one better than the person who knows and loves their product to be writing about it and talking to others about it. People just need to be shown how to start using social media in a business-savvy way.
Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
2. This is admittedly a trickier question, but I do agree. Of course the agency and client should negotiate whatever suits them best. But to have a fixed monthly retainer as standard runs the risk of insinuating that social media is something that can be finished. In fact, I wrote a guest blog on this yesterday, saying that the first step to running a successful social media campaign is to ditch the very notion of a campaign (the word implies a finish line, not to mention military/political aggression!).
This reminds me of those black-hat SEOs who approach businesses and make wild claims to get them to the top of Google in a month. Or SEO Agency clients who want X traffic by X date. Whether they succeed or not, if it’s not sustainable then it’s a load of rubbish!
Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
3. I don’t want to absolutely agree with this… As some people obviously have no idea about how to use Social Media effectively! As I said, the place of Digital Agency work is going to change – their role needs to more about educating a client in how to continue engaging with social media. So, pay for help if you need it. But ask the agency how what they’ve done can be sustained and learn from what they’ve done rather than see it as a campaign.
Lloyd Gofton (director / cofounder of Liberate Media) says:
Don’t run social networks as the client – agree or disagree
1. Agree, but this isn’t all or nothing, the agency needs to be fully involved beginning with training the client, developing this understanding in practical terms by walking them through real-life processes and remaining involved to highlight issues/discussions/opportunities for the client to get involved in the conversation. If and when the agency needs to get involved this should be made clear either in the biography for the profile, confirming the responses are developed by the marketing team and who this includes, or with a direct sign off on the post/comment.
I agree with some of the other comments, specifically that in some cases clients just want you to take this part of the campaign away from them and deal with it, buying social media in the way that they think a commodity can be purchased – ‘just get me some of that social media’. In these cases it’s necessary to step up the education process, show the client exactly what can happen and run them through actual scenarios and consequences to bring the importance of their external communications home to them. Often this barrier is just a lack of understanding, but i admit this isn’t possible in all cases. At that point it comes down to the agency-client relationship, and whether a compromise can be found adhering to the issues of transparency/knowledge/etc.
Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer – agree or disagree
2. I think this question very much depends on the circumstances, and the client sector. If you are saying social media shouldn’t be billed on a set monthly retainer that doesn’t evolve in-line with the requirements, then yes i agree; i don’t think it’s relevant to charge a set fee of £x amount per month to cover all elements. However, if you’re saying billing should only be done by action, that in-turn creates a whole new admin nightmare of agreeing set fee levels for potential activity and it pushes us further towards the hourly rate that a solicitor might take, which again is not where we need to be.
This is far from a simple issue, and many agencies have taken the easy route of cramming social media services into existing billing structures, which usually involves monthly retainers, and changing the way services are delivered around the billing structure rather than the other way around, which isn’t right either.
The obvious exception comes with a project where objectives are set, metrics agreed and timelines roughly in place, which is increasingly popular. In terms of ongoing campaigns, i think a lower set fee to cover ongoing service, monitoring, management etc is acceptable, and the project approach can be taken to deliver more encompassing activity.
Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign – agree or disagree
3. Disagree, but again, it depends on the issues. As i said at the beginning we are primarily a communications agency. We listen, engage on key issues, build conversation, develop useful content…you get the picture. We have a decent technical understanding and have in-house technical team members but this isn’t our strength and it isn’t what we want to do. We work with trusted partners, and have done for many years, to deliver successful campaigns.
I think the big issue is trying to complete the social media circle in a single agency, encompassing research, strategy, build, engagement and measurement, which usually results in problems as the agency’s skill set usually falls in one or maybe two areas, meaning two pieces are done very well and the rest just fumbles along.
We also might work with a brand’s traditional PR agency, marketing agency, search agency, digital agency, etc, etc. We may not know them, and sometimes we think they don’t know what they are doing in terms of social media, but again it depends on the relationship with the client, and of course you have to stand by your beliefs, even if that means warning the client and walking away.
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