In the battle for ownership of revenue and ideas, where should social media reside? I just had a meeting with a client to discuss a retainer for Hitwise, a monitoring service owned by Experian that, among other things, helps to track chatter about a brand in the social environments. Does a tool that can track trends in consumer feedback belong at a media buying agency? It does if you want to draw a direct correlation between an integrated television, radio, digital and social media campaign and consumer impact. Does it belong with the creative agency? A case could definitely be made that the same agency responsible for pre and post awareness studies would be responsible for ongoing awareness of and influence from the brand. Does it belong with the PR agency? The same people who have a built-in system for tracking press clippings and consumer complaints would have a very strong case for this service. Does it belong with the agency that is handling website development and SEO (search engine optimization)? Maybe, but not as likely. They could potentially make an argument that they need to see the chatter to help better enhance SEO performance. This is just a simple example of the land grab for tangible revenue that is going on every day as the all-encompassing term “social media” becomes more and more prevalent. In our case, we bundle it into our Analytics Ecosystem offering, and we convey the interrelationship between Hitwise data and other data sources. It is logical, and clients understand that it makes sense to reside here. But… we also have to engage in a collaborative relationship with our vendor partners to ensure that everyone receives the valuable data from this service to help inform and enhance their specific offerings. The ideas Another question that we’re witnessing more and more is not related to where social media lives, but rather, where does the idea generation process initiate? In a business category in which intellectual property (our ideas) is as valuable as anything we do, this isn’t just a competition for pride. If a client perceives that the ideas are not flowing from your shop, they will go somewhere else. A good social media idea is not just a media execution idea but it needs to understand the potential implementation. It is not just a public relations or promotion referral-type idea but it helps to have referral-driven legs to monetize it, and it isn’t just a cool creative idea but we all know that it needs to have a good hook or no one will care about it to begin with. The great social media ideas capture all of those elements, and also work with a client to track the impact to the business bottom line. We’ve found that rather than trying to compete for the great idea and the client kudos, the best way to handle this it to get everyone in the room together. Working with competitors This is sometimes easier said than done. We work with partner agencies, many of which have competitive overlap in their service offerings. It is something we have to address at the client level. We advise the client to schedule the meeting, to set the ground rules for engagement, and most importantly to put all agency partners at ease to alleviate competitive tensions. It isn’t a perfect science by any means, and it involves us all having to check our egos at the door to some extent. But the end result has been a new-found level of engagement and idea generation that ultimately results in better ideas that are realistic and executable, with the added benefit of clients who appreciate our willingness to make compromises to help fuel their bottom line. Do we still care where the idea originates? Of course we do. But not as much as we care about our clients’ success. Social media isn’t going anywhere. We all have to find our own way to navigate through its complexities. We’ve found that the best path to success is to focus on core communication fundamentals like over-communicating with vendors and managing client expectations while fostering inter-agency teamwork all along the way. Matt Greenfield is SVP, Director of Client Services for KSL Media, a marketing services organization in Encino.