Digital Agencies: Drag your clients into the Social Media age

I read a great article by Social Media Consultant, Joanne Jacobs, the other afternoon on Selling Social Media. It really got me thinking about the significance of not only educating, but forcing our clients into building their digital marketing strategy around the web 2.0 phenomenon that is changing the way we are communicating.

Social media is not just a group of new technologies. It’s not just a Facebook fan page or sticking some social networking bookmarks at the end of a blog post.  It’s a completely new way of thinking… and it’s our job to make sure our clients ‘get it’? – No one said this was going to be easy.

Taking Twitter as an example – you’d be forgiven for thinking that is just a new way of shouting messages to the customer base like an RSS news feed. It’s not. It’s a robust tool to listen, engage and connect on a personal level with the ‘real’ people who are buying your product or service. It’s all about conversation. But getting your client to really understand this is an art form in itself.

Adopting a social media strategy is a huge learning curve. It takes time and patience to get it right and will provide even the most open-minded PR manager a migraine. But ignoring it and hoping it goes away just isn’t going to happen. We need to drag our clients into the social media age – but more than that, we need them to embrace it with both arms open – not just dip their toes in the water.

We’re here to aid our clients in the creation of conversation through social media, digest everything and provide them with statistics to show them exactly what’s going on out there.

Hardcore social media heads are getting worried about monetising social media and weakening its power. They’re insisting it’s not a ‘sellable product’ – but in Joanne’s words – “Try staying in business for the next five years without it.”

Every type of digital agency needs to take note as social media changes the digital landscape – Design & Build agencies at the flexibility and customisation options of new platforms, Media agencies at new ways of advertising and so on. The quicker we are in convincing our clients that Social media is here to stay, the better.

Drag your clients into the Social Media Age

Tags: digital agencies, Social Media