Agencies Struggle with Social Media Marketing

A Recent study featured in "Ad Week" has shown that the majority of traditional advertising agencies "dont get it" when is comes to social media marketing and optimization. This is no fault of traditional ad shops at all.

Social media is a totally different animal than traditional offline media. The report was performed by TNS Media Intelligence and polled 60 marketing executives for large companies such as FedEx and Suzuki. Marketers (almost across the board) stated that their traditional advertising agencies have tried to get into social media but have underperformed. Traditional advertising agencies tend to treat social media like they do offline advertising. The interviewed marketers pointed out that the agencies typically don't have any practical knowledge of social media and some of them don't even use it themselves!

David Harris, e-marketing manager from Suzuki says is best "The existing marketing partners do not understand the ins and outs of the social media space." Marketers interviewed also agreed that despite their lack of ability to market in the social media landscape, traditional marketers can talk a good game and promise the world, but not deliver. As the demand for effective social media marketing companies increases we're going to see a huge demand for internet marketing professionals who are fluent in the social media landscape. Traditional agencies will need to rewrite the book on how to market their clients. Those who do not, risk falling behind in a race that never ends. Speaking of which.. time for me to let a tweet go!