Social media window of opportunity closing for PR agencies?

A great post by Ged Carroll

I liked this bit:

Participation in social media requires a shift in thinking. Clients need to reorient themselves around creating an ongoing relationship with customers rather than hitting them with periodic campaigns. They also must work through the uncertainties of allowing “untrained” marketers within their companies participate in shaping their brands.

And this diagram (always one for piccys me)

Couple of points:

- “Clients need to reorient themselves around creating an ongoing relationship with customers rather than hitting them with periodic campaigns.” Always in beta.

- “They also must work through the uncertainties of allowing “untrained” marketers within their companies participate in shaping their brands.” What Rohit likes to call the ‘accidental spokesperson‘.

- Long-term I believe most companies will increasingly follow Zappos‘ lead (hat tip to Nicholas for the Zappos case study), developing their own presence online rather than outsourcing to a third party agency. However, the big ‘in’ for many agencies in my mind is working with clients to:

- devise comms strategy (derr- on AND offline)
- training (get those accidental spokespeople et al talking)
- become their consumer antennae (some people call this planning)
- content creation (few companies are geared up to doing this for themselves- it helps it the agency has a view on the type of content the company should create too rather than act as a supplier)

As the next social media platform goes mainstream, it is inevitable that there will be something new already simmering away about to blow a load of thinking out of the water.

God knows how an “agency” (PR or otherwise) will look by the time I retire.

P.S Let me know if you think I’ve missed any other rolls for the agency of the future out.