Comments on: Speed hosts ‘No More Hot Air’ Social Media Week breakfast

By: chris cook

chris cook — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:29:55 +0000

Completely agree with your summary of the three options for PR agencies when tackling the social media question. It has to be integration EVERY time. And yet PR agencies go down the silo cul-de-sac again and again. And we all know where that leads… ‘can you give me some digital slides for the back of the pitch doc?’ – we’ve all been there.

Lack of vision and leadership from PR agency management is to blame. Recruiting an external ‘digital guru’ to tick the social media box overnight will always be an easier/quicker solution than investing in training to improve the skills of everyone in the agency. But it rarely delivers the cultural change needed.

By: Caroline Allen

Caroline Allen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:49:06 +0000

Looking forward to the next 18 months! Have learnt so much in the past 12 months and been able to put it into practice for clients, mixing conventional PR with digital outreach. It’s a skill set not to be underestimated in this day and age.

By: Michelle Goodall

Michelle Goodall — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:24:40 +0000

Stephen, completely agree that it is a fundamental change for business.

It’s now much, much more than just building social media into digital campaigns. Organisations are exploring where digital dialogue and online conversations sit within the Enterprise across functions, teams, departments and how businesses create a manageable, scalable, evolutionary and measured approach to this. That’s a business re-engineering job and is massively difficult for many businesses and organisations.

A key challenge for agencies and specialists in social media is do they have the genuine skills and cross-functional, enterprise knowledge to move beyond ‘campaigns’ and provide clients with strategic counsel minus ‘the hot air’.