Why Communicate is part of thenetworkone, the world’s largest independent agency network. We were asked to write an article for their global newsletter with the title “PR: Social and Branding”, and here’s our article. Hope you’ll find it useful. If you want to read the other network agencies essays you can find them here.
“For consultants who have been working with social media from the beginning, say around 2007, it´s frustrating to see how slow things are changing. Surely, you can point at a number of exceptions, but we meet companies every month who are still just in the beginning of their work in social media.
The social media transformation – from earned to paid reach
In the beginning, social media belonged to the PR department as it was considered earned media. In 2013-2014, the industry suddenly changed.
Everyone who heard of Oreo´s stunt at Super Bowl 2013 wanted to achieve the same viral success as they did (although it’s said that their social media stunt reached less than 2 % of the target audience). But in 2014, Facebook’s change of their algorithms also changed the rules. After that, the only way to reach a larger audience was to pay for it. With this transformation, the interest in social media shifted from the PR department to the marketing department.
Native advertising in social media
A number of new disciplines have emerged over the last years, with social media and Native advertising being two of the biggest changes. A PR company working with a new client can never guarantee exposure in a newspaper. Native advertising can. Digital advertising in social media channels can as well. The death of newspapers and a shrinking blog world, with bloggers (or Instagrammers) being less and less willing to write without getting paid, as well as the arise of Native advertising, has decreased the influence of the traditional PR industry within the companies’ communication mix.
The communication confusion
What does a PR agency, an advertising agency, a media advisor, a web agency, a social media agency or a native advertising agency really offer today? All of the agencies are competing on the same field with equal offers, saying that they can provide anything that any other agency can. In the middle of all this, we have a client not knowing which agency to trust and how to make a choice.
Lack of models
Another challenge is the lack of models to use when comparing various channels. Is a reach of 100,000 people for a Facebook ad really a better deal compared to a reach of 100,000 achieved by a magazine ad, even if you pay less? The comparison is hard to do and we lack established models for it.
Adding to the confusion, as the communication industry is trying to reinvent its offer, there are a lot of conversations going on above the client’s head and out of reach for the tools we use to measure traffic with, e.g. in Snapchat or chat apps as We Chat, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. What is the real traffic and what ROI is produced?
In summary
We see a heavily shrinking market of newspapers, a near future in which young people skip linear tv and a social media industry unable to convince companies about the levels of ROI it can achieve. The client is confused and doesn´t know where to spend the marketing budget. And if they decide to go all in with social media, they often don´t have the organization in place to take care of all the reactions social media brings.
We feel that, at the moment, no one is in charge of developing the industry. People who are running the social media industry are not senior enough to understand the bigger picture, don´t have enough brand knowledge and often too low creative ability. Vice versa, the experienced people within the advertising and PR industry generally don’t’ understand social media. The same goes for the client’s side.
This confusion will pass of course, but it will take a generation of consultants and clients. During this period of time, we try, fail, succeed – without really knowing the amount of the success because it’s hard to measure, compare and evaluate! Eventually, we will establish a new order in which we have the models to measure and evaluate and don´t divide the marketing world into old school and new school as we do today. Those are times to look forward to.”