I came across a blog post recently written by Jason Falls on Social Media Explorer that I thought was fantastic and I wanted to share it with you.

The article is called Advertising Agencies And Social Media: A Culture Clash and in it Jason expresses his opinion that “there is a culture clash between ad agencies and social media marketing… Social media is, in many ways, the antithesis of advertising.”

Jason goes on to say, “Advertising is one-way communications aimed at large groups of consumers. Social media is two-way communications that requires listening as well as speaking. It can also be said that social media is a multiple-way communications method as brands can speak and listen, but also watch other consumers talk to each other. An agency’s creatives and strategic planners suddenly having to factor in listening and observing to their communications process after decades of just shouting from the roof tops – and this presents a seismic culture shift.

Social media is also about building relationships. Advertising is about driving people to a buying decision. In fact, I would propose that in most cases, advertising has nothing to do with a relationship. It’s all about persuading someone to take action, not discussing the decision-making process and becoming a trusted resource for the person choosing.”

WOW. I could not agree more. And here’s the problem with this conundrum. Clients are looking to their various marketing agencies and asking, “What can you do for me in regards to social media?”.

You do it! No, you do it!

The traditional ad agency is pointing to the PR firm and saying, “That’s not what we do. Social media is public relations. It’s about branding and relationship-building.”

So, the client looks to their PR firm who finger-points back to the ad agency and says, “Social media isn’t PR, it’s advertising. You are educating people about your products and driving them to your website” .

Now the client is confused. And quite frankly, they don’t care WHO does it – they just need someone… anyone to tell them what to do and help them form a strategy and an action plan.

Listen, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And these days, there are a LOT of new tricks to learn with regards to social media between the new social media platforms and the applications that accompany them. At Gangway, instead of finger-pointing, we have embraced these new opportunities for our clients to engage and embrace their customer base.

Never before has a company had the opportunity to manage their online reputation, dialog in real-time with a customer about an issue or say “thank you” for kind words said about them and to really give ‘life’ to their brand in the way that sites like Facebook and twitter provide.

So, if your business is looking for answers about how to implement a social media plan or how to better utilize these platforms – give Gangway a call. Because the only finger-pointing we do is to the computer screen to show you how to make these platforms work for you!

- Cynthia Smoot, Director of Integrated Media