Take 36 well meaning questions from many people who care about pharmaceuticals, disclosure, safety, and social media and send them to the FDA, and read “we are unable to comment” as the answer for almost each one.
http://www.fdasm.com/docs/FINAL%20DDMAC%20Responses%20to%20FDASM_Questions.pdf
Unsatisfying.
I come across many marketing firms who are now rebranded as social media firms. Friends who own or work in small businesses, and some of my clients have shared names of folks they are, or wish to work with. So I check them out. Some things are just amazing to me.
Here’s a picture from the twitter page of a social media agency that offered to consult with a local company (my friend is the IT manager). Did you notice their URL?
The pattern that I’m seeing most often is that these are design shops who have experience in brochures, websites, and email campaigns. They know how to make things look pretty, centered, and spell-checked. And this is great. But when the enter the “social marketing” space, they simply take all their skills and apply it to the new channel.
This reminds me of the very early TV programs when TV first came out. Many of them featured two or three people behind a desk, with a microphone, and a stack of paper with notes. In other words – Radio with a camera.
It took a bit of time for people to realize that TV is a bit different than “radio with a camera.” There are all sorts of things you can do on TV that you cannot do in radio. And things that you cannot do on TV that you can get away with on the radio. TV and radio programming differ. TV and radio ads differ. And only a few very clever masters are good a the cross-over between the two. Howards Stern (love him or hate him, that’s your call) is clearly one of those people who understand how to play both mediums. Some of the news commentators on talk radio have been able to be effective on TV too. But they are different.
So too is direct marketing (broadcasting) and interactive marketing (social engagement). If you try one mode in the other medium, it just does not work. And unfortunately for some of these agencies, it’s pretty obvious to see when they don’t get it. When their websites have no place to comment in, their Facebook fan pages are empty, their twitter stream has not a single conversation.
IMO, hire these folks to design your brochures, logos, postcards, and websites. They know design. But don’t settle for “radio with a camera” when you want to watch a good action flick on TV.
