socialmedian: What is a Social Media Agency?

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What is a Social Media Agency?

Submitted by Fruchter from Google Reader

Jul 03, 2009

Summary

Recently I’ve run into a number of companies who call themselves a “social media agency”. Here are some examples (this is not a joke):

1.) Company A

This company sells “engagement marketing” services. They use an ASP Buzz Monitoring tool (a pretty good one) to identify brand mentions in Blogs, Forums, etc. When they see a brand mention (positive or negative) they respond on behalf of their client (pretending to be their client). They also tweet for their clients and build Blogs. Company A makes much of its money from the markup of the ASP tool they use (I guess their clients don’t know that they could become a direct subscriber to the ASP company and pay far less.) As recently as a year ago, this company called itself a PR Firm.

2.) Company B

This company sells Ambassador Programs. They have developed an ASP tool that is essentially Ning (except not free and not nearly as robust) with some Analytics behind it. They use the client’s house email list as well as rented lists to invite current and prospective customers to become an Ambassador for the client.

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Comments (1)

Fruchter,

Jul 03, 2009

"So…before you hire, think about your Social Media strategy and what you really need from an outsourced vendor to execute it well. And remember that at the end of the day, relationships can’t and shouldn’t be outsourced."