There is no shortage of commentary on the subject of “who owns social media” among professional service providers and consultants. Ad agencies, SEO specialists, PR firms, technologists, web shops, bloggers, etc. etc. are all jockeying for a piece of the pie.
The Business Owns Social Media Marketing
Let’s keep this short (not sweet). The business owns social media marketing. Period. Integrated interactive marketing cannot succeed otherwise. Modern marketing must be closely coupled with the authentic business voice. It cannot be substantially outsourced. And anybody that says otherwise doesn’t “get” social marketing. They don’t get that customers are changing their buying habits.
Modern Customers and Modern Marketers are Smarter
Modern customers insist on verifiable word-of-mouth and a direct line of communication to marketers. Modern marketing service providers will earn their fees by teaching, empowering, and coaching business owners. And the elite will succeed because they can collaborate among all the specialists – PR, Advertising, SEO.
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Zabada, Inc.
Andy Sernovitz
CopyBlogger
Gary Vaynerchuk
July 10th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I agree that ownership and end responsibility are with the enterprise, but there are practical considerations of time/bandwidth/expertise that leaves plenty of room for outsourced support.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
This makes a lot of sense. I have invested a lot of energy over the last couple years “leveraging my core competency and outsourcing everything else.” Where is a good place to start to strike a balance thinking about bringing some of this closer to home? Thanks!
July 14th, 2009 at 9:54 am
I would start with a blog and use it as a syndication hub with the a few targeted social media networks. Facebook is obviously very powerful for faith / cause related organization like yours.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Not sure how I stumbled upon this (not through Stumbleupon) months after but I completely agree with the post. If a social media agency or consultant offers to Tweet on your behalf or otherwise provide your “voice” in the conversation with your customers, walk out of the meeting immediately.
Of course, they should provide you with guidance, strategy, tactics, tools, support, etc. to help target and optimise your social media efforts.
August 27th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I agree that the business ultimately owns social media marketing, but saying that an outside agency or consultant can never tweet on their behalf is painting with too broad a brush. At the very least, an outside agency can provide technical assistance, strategic guidance and tactical consulting. In some cases, an agency can provide execution assistance as well.
In those situations when the agency and client have worked together for year, and the agency has written or edited much of company’s content, optimized their websites, spoken with media on their behalf, met some of their customers – the agency is certainly positioned to speak with the company’s “voice” in certain venues.