Role of Social Media Marketing Agencies is Changing

Anyone involved with PR and marketing these days is also involved with social media and digital tactics and strategies. Eric Forst, VP of strategic partnerships at Visible Technologies says he's seeing a trend that impacts the role of social media marketing agencies. "Traditionally, their role is to set up Facebook or Twitter accounts and to manage that profile," Forst told us. "More clients are pulling that in-house, so the role of social media marketing agencies has become measurement and analytics." Forst was just promoted to VP of strategic agency partnerships at Visible, the social media monitoring and analytics company. He previously led the company's West Coast new business efforts and has worked with Traffic Marketplace, an Internet display advertising network. "They [social media marketing agencies] are also now being forced to reposition themselves as agencies and become more of a research or creative shop," Forst added. While the role may be changing, it's certainly no less important as clients and agencies both continue to increasingly seek out ways to demonstrate the value of PR efforts and initiatives. Earlier this month, the Institute for PR announced a June 8 workshop at the European Measurement Summit in Lisbon, Portugal called "Towards Global Standards in Social Media Measurement.” Results will be discussed at the North American Summit on Measurement, taking place in Philadelphia in September. While the measurement standards may still be a work in progress, there are already benefits to this in-house shift in social media outreach, according to Forst. "For agencies that have tried to do outreach, it's tricky for firms to identify themselves," he said. "This removes ambiguity. Companies will have a better result because they're more transparent. The audience will be talking directly to the company and not through a third party." Have you noticed this shift? Any thoughts on the impact that it can have on social media agencies? The comments section is open and you can reach us at @PRNewser.

Social Pro Daily

Role of Social Media Marketing Agencies is Changing

Tonya Garcia

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Tonya Garcia