DigitalAgency

More cheese Grommit?:

Every Saturday morning, it's my habit to drop the digital and go analogue.

Picking up the current issues of Campaign magazine, NMA, Creative Review, if it's out, and any other marketing mags to hand.

This week I  added 'The Drum', Scotland's advertising and marketing magazine to my pile.

Later, sitting with my cappuccino in Centotre, (epicentre of of the Edinburgh Social Media scene, and a true, real, living breathing Social network if ever there was), I flipped as I sipped, through the media.

In Campaign, reading Trevor Beattie's Private View, I nodded sagely as he gave his whole-hearted approval to Harvey Nick's Wallace & Grommit ads for the new Bristol store opening. (I blogged about this work awhile back. Loved it as soon as I saw it.)

As luck would have it, another advertising luminary, (a 'Head of Marketing' no less), reviewed the self-same HN campaign in the Drum.

Here's her considered view:

Now, I draw no conclusions from this, other than the following.

The cover price of Campaign is a not cheap; £3.60. The Drum's, an even heftier £4.51. (£4.51, I piss you not. And, at my age, that one pee can make all the different. Particularly when travelling.)

But of course, isn't quality always worth paying that little bit more for?

Nuture your 'Social Stars':

I spend a fair amount of my time talking to brands, pr companies and ad agencies about the benefits Social Media.

At Board level I meet everyone from smart cookies to execs who think that social media is the devils spawn. With the majority of Directors, dithering determinedly in-between.

'Interested,' (but not that interested enough to immerse and engage in social media themselves), happy to watch and drop buzz-words in from the sidelines.

However, one of the best bits about my job, is when I get into contact with the true believers on the shop-floor.

I'm not bashed, (which presumably/hopefully is the opposite of unabashed?) to say that there are occasions when I go and consult/coach/meddle within an organisation, and get more than I give.

Leaving a meeting/workshop/coaching session having learned more from them, than I leave behind. (But I always nail them when I show them under the hood of friendfeed.)

There's a particular research team I work with with, who are absolutely the bees knees when it comes to social bookmarking and getting the best out of delicious.

I know of two girls who work within the same organisation who are incredible photographers, and know flickr inside out. Yet does their employer encourage them to shoot and post for the company, er, no.

This company also has about half-a-dozen keen personal tweeters. But how about harnessing this expertise for some regular/additional corporate tweeting?

And of course, it wouldn't be difficult to think of any number of sharp-minded, opinionated, would make phenomenal bloggers. (I can't for the life of me understand why more ad agency copywriters don't blog. (Apart from a few notable and stellar exceptions) They can't still be scared of computers can they?

Incredibly, most individual social media mavens seem to; 'get on with their own thing', with no organisational structure, internal strategy or encouragement from on high. (aka The Board.)

This, in my book, (and, as it happens, in my blog), seem to be missing a trick.

Shouldn't companies who have 'Social Stars' be cultivating these skills for the good of the brand?

Should they not be supported with the social media version of Google 20% time for the benefit of the company online?

Shouldn't these stars be coaching, inspiring and evangelising to other members of staff, who might have some skills to bring to the social party?

Shouldn't your company's marketing, pr, HR people think about how to orchestrate and manage all these available internal skills, in the service of that tried and tested; 'The whole is greater than the sum of the parts' malarkey?

Shouldn't most companies have a multi-skilled 'Social Task Force'.

Answers on a digital postcard please....(to fade.)

The first writer to mention twitter:?

A friend of mine was urged me recently to read a bit of TS Eliot. 

Particularly; The Four Quartets. 

Grudgingly, (I'm more a Dennis Lehane man), and keeping my Yorkshire-trained wallet firmly in my pocket, I Googled the old buffer and not only found the text, but an mp3 of the great man himself reading an 11 minutes extract.

Here's a visionary paragraph from the Burnt Norton section, that predates the rise of digital agencies in the East End, and social media by a good 70 years.

London's wi-fi'ed twittering classes;  you were sussed years ago.

"Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world."

Anyone for: 'Social Media Management Fees'?:

Though not strictly speaking a GoogleWhack, I'm both pleased and dismayed, (is that possible?) that the above search phrase has turned up absolutely nothing.

Pleased because it's a 'first' and I might be on to something. (Well, I can live in hope can't I?)

Dismayed because I would have thought 'Social Media Management Fees' would have been a key revenue stream for the world and his digital brother in pr, advertising and web agencies right now. (And consequently show up as a popular search return on Google.)

Of course, most Marketing Directors are aware that Social Media is a big deal for them. And keen to use it for the benefit of their brand. However, many are also confused about the ROI, unsure how to use the tools, and perhaps most important, undecided who to trust for guidance.

This has led to something of a bun-fight/turf-war between a brand's advertising, pr, digital and design agencies, not to mention their web developers, seo people and even media buying agencies.

With many of them claiming; "Yeah, we can do that social media stuff." (Or 'gubbins' as I once heard it described by the Director of a web developer I visited.)

But can they?

A switched-on client's response would be: 'Great. Send me links to your blog/flickr sets/YouTube channel/LinkedIn profiles/Tweets/Friendfeed room/delicious bookmarks/slideshare stacks' etc, etc, etc.

And they'd be able to see online, in an instant, who's just talking the social media talk, (i.e. bullshitting), instead of walking the walk with authenticity, integrity and commitment.

(No returns on this search? Shurely, schome mishtake?)

However most clients probably don't think to do this, and so some social media 'vendors', who are ill-equipped to help a client, actually get the business/'gubbins'.

And then suggest, develop and implement all sorts of made-up-on-the-fly/painfully out of date social solution cobblers.

To wit: An ad agency account man rang me last week asking if I wanted to work on a well-funded web 2.0 project for a high-profile client. At first I said yes please, lovely. He told me the client; to which I said; 'You can have my first born if I get to work on this.' Then he told me he'd pre-sold the client on spending a not insignificant wad of cash building a 3D environment in Second Life.

As you can imagine, my initial, eager, salivating 'yes', quickly became a firm, definite, get-off-my-porch NO.

IMHO, I thought Second Life was a dubious concept well over 12 months ago when you couldn't open a browser without reading about it being an industry game-changer, now I'm more than dubious,  I think for most brands it's a positively barmy/barking idea.

But the problem is, too many clients are being sold 'past their sell-by solutions' by those who don't get social media in the first place. (Far less, actually use social media themselves.)

Yet, so many comms outfits today want/need/are desperate for the business. But unfortunately for all concerned they haven't a scoobie about how to actually help a client engage in social media.

It's all a bit like IFA's mis-selling pensions. Which in my book, and on my blog come to that, is a poor do.

Of course, the classy digital agencies do get it, and in the main are leading from the front. (You know who you are. Oh I've made you blush.)

Some ad agencies, pr and design companies too are doing great work.

But the vast body of the marketing and comms industries have a hell of a way to go until they can honestly start charging clients Social Media Management Fees.

So what should the ad, pr, design and digital agencies who don't yet get social media do?

Well, since you ask, my advice would be:

1. Realise that social media prowess isn't an overnight thing. It takes time and consistent effort. (But is fun along the way.) For now, forget ROI. but think ROT; Return On Time. Start playing with the tools. Sign-up. Build profiles. Devour all the stuff that's out there. Get an iPhone. (Seriously.) Audit what your competitors are doing.

2. Look for the 'social stars' in your agency. You'll find them. Great photographers/flick fans, brilliant bloggers, mini-dv maestro's, terrific tweeters, networking nutcases, booking-marking behemoths...(okay Mike enough alliteration, they get the picture.) Build a 'social-taskforce'. And give your social stars the opportunity to shine. (Perhaps even provide a bit of Google 20% time.)

3. Go balls-out to use the full range of social media tools in-house, in your own agency; test blogs, build flickr sets, share bookmarks, appoint a blip.fm house dj, get your head around tags, everything and anything social that takes your fancy, then point these strengthening skills outwards; circulate online at the social media party.

4. Now you're ready to take your new found social media knowledge, evangelism and coaching to your clients and work/collaborate with them. Repeat steps 2 and 3, for the benefit of their brand, (And for the benefit of monthly SMMF's for you.)

Here endeth todays lesson.

Coffee Morn 050908:

Another varied and interesting Edinburgh Coffee Morning at Centotre this morn.

Ewan was there from Channel4's 4ip. Blogger/Photographer, Darcie from DarcieCondie.com. Derek Hoy from SnowCloud, As was copywriter Chris Muir, Me, of course, Andy from recentchanges, and last but certainly not least Jon from Force.com.

Unbelievably we hardly discussed the iPhone or any iApps this week, (a first for quite a while), though we did cover Darcie's series of photographs of a Leith based tagger who's been spraying her initials everywhere. (She's 'repackaged' the work to promote herself via a lovely set of Moo post cards.)

We couldn't wheedle a damn thing out of Ewan about any top secret Channel4 stuff he was up to, but he did talk about/show us some lovely C4 animation/trailers currently being aired.

Jon told us about a book on creativity that influenced/influences him; Richard Ogle's Smart World.

I made a prediction that a new social media job title to watch out for is 'Social Profile Manager.'  A bit like a Community Manager, (Jon's job), but babysitting/mentoring the digital footprints/social media usage of key executives, for the benefit of both brand and curious consumer.

(I also banged on again about how FriendFeed, or at least the concept behind rich content aggregation, life/brandstreams, brand/key executive orientated 'rooms' & threaded comments is/will be a 'big-deal'.

As usual, everybody smiled politely, said, "yeah, yeah, yeah Mike." Then found something much more interesting and fascinating to look at in their coffee cups.)

Chris told us about his new method of dealing with loud iPod music spilling out irritatingly from fellow travellers' headphones: He starts dancing to it.

We talked a bit, randomly, and not really worth linking-to-ly about the Edinburgh Entrepreneurs Club, looked back nostalgically and a bit piss-takingly at the early days of First Tuesday, Wondered out aloud why the Edinburgh geeky, gamey, techie, marketing, web 2.0-y groups, don't meet each other more, (like they did at the Guardian gig a while back.), why I was wearing a suit again, the Twitter FAIL! Whale industry, and creative 404's on flickr and in general.

Er, that was about it, then it was time to go to work.

Wallace & Grommit for Harvey Nicks Bristol:

Brilliant:

DDB London, photography by Giles Revell.

(Who incidentally has done a wonderful PhotoFit portrait series here.)

More about HN/W&G here at Creative Review.

Tom Loosemore's essential ppt stack:

I think this presentation, (over a year old now, but no less important, nevertheless), is brilliant.

First picked up via Ewan McIntosh's highly informed, always insightful blog.

Tom's observations are concise, unfussy, and right on the money. And not just for the BBC, I think most brands could learn a lot from these 15 principles:

BBC2.0: The BBC’s 15 Web Principles

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design information)