There was a letter in PR Week UK last week [paywlled] criticising agencies having 'specialist' teams to do social media work. The author complained that agencies shouldn't look at social media as separate from other media; in other word it should be baked into all other parts of the agency.
Now I agree with this sentiment, I'm also of the view that social media is more than just a tool or tactic. The internet is a platform that's creating and facilitating some pretty fundmental shifts in our society and culture.
While Edelman in the UK has a separate team working with 'digital' we encourage other account teams to bake in as much online stuff as they are comfortable and capable of.
In return we get to look into the technologies and ideas that are and will be shaping society - both online and offline.
Which brings me onto what Doc Searl's has written about the whole Microsoft/Facebook story of this (last?) week. Doc's view seems to suggest that while the deal is big business news it's not as exciting as developments being made in the open source industry:
I believe ... that the solutions that matter most aren’t going to come from big companies. They’ll come from independent developers working at companies large and small — including Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Also from users themselves, who now play roles as producers as well as consumers. (In fact, much of the open source movement is about the demand side supplying itself — “scratching one’s own itch” and all that.)
For me this is where social media 'specialists' (yuk!) add real value to agencies and their clients by not only advising how to use media in an online world, but how to do business and communicate in an online world that is becoming inreasingly like a test-bed for future society.
How many account teams who can advise on 'monitoring blogs' can also help clients understand that trends such as the open source movement may mean that in five years time the demand side of their sector will be supplying itself and how they can adjust to this?
Technorati tags: Facebook, Microsoft, Doc Searls, public relations, open source, consultancy
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