VivaKi Looks to Create New Unit

Meanwhile, Mediabrands' two full-service media shops also reorganized their social media efforts this year. Initiative created a unit called PropheSee, and Universal McCann unveiled Rally@UM.

At Omnicom Media Group, OMD developed a social media practice called OMD Word that officially opened its doors at the beginning of the year. It is overseen by Matt Duffy, U.S. director of social platforms. Social media strategy, he said, "is at the tip-top of every marketer's mind. There's hardly a conversation that doesn't include social." Duffy and his team help clients develop social strategies, work with outside parties (including co-owned entities like search specialist Resolution Media) to implement those strategies and then coordinate with OMD Digital to analyze results.

Meanwhile, GroupM has a plethora of teams and assets within its three main agencies, as well as stand-alone GroupM specialists like M80 and companies within the broader WPP holding company to help it service the social media needs of its clients, said GroupM North American CEO Rob Norman. That includes listening platforms like Zaaz, a unit of Wunderman, and Cymfony, which is housed at Kantar, the research company WPP bought two years ago.

"Everything we do today in marketing services has a social component," said Norman.  But reorganizing its varied assets in the space into a dedicated social media unit "won't happen," said Norman.

For now, he said, the structure works fine, stressing that no individual brand, discipline or entity owns the space. Case in point: Audi, which created a social media campaign around this year's Super Bowl. MediaCom coordinated the effort of what Norman described as a "triangular team" that included M80 and Zaaz.

But it's not always the media agency that's driving it, he said, noting that WPP public relations shop Hill & Knowlton, direct specialist Wunderman and other WPP agencies are adept in the space.

That's because how and by whom a client's social media strategy is developed internally depends on "what they mean by social media strategy," said Norman.