Social Media and PR Firms: The Cost of Expertise

Guest post by: Michele Harris

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Social Media and PR Firms: The Cost of Expertise

In the business of managing reputations and promoting messages among audiences, most all PR agencies are deep-seated in social media. Will they take completely take over the discipline? There are few true full-service social media firms, and they have an advantage.

Developing a strategic social media program that will build a business involves costs and expertise. Social media is typically deemed as “earned” media, but that’s a long-term goal. Managing a social media program is time intensive and can be expensive.Social media encompasses creative, media, technology and public relations. There are lots of hard costs involved:

Technology: Listening and monitoring technology is complex,expensiveand rapidly changing all the time. Not every business or PR firm is prepared to continually invest in this area.

Media Buying: Building followers on Facebook is vastly quicker with paid ads, which requires online media buying expertise--a completely different skill set. This may step on an advertising agency or media buying agency's toes.

Creative: Creating really good, high-quality creative content such as viral videos also demands a different skill set, along with productive capabilities. Strong creative production can be expensive.

Reputation Management & Customer Service: Reputation management and monitoring is a core part of public relations. Managing a client's responses on Twitter and Facebook and acting as a customer service agent is huge time investment and requires dedicated resources. It’s a big time sucker; someone’s got to do it, andthere’s still a real cost associated with that.

The biggest challenge PR firms face is a limited budget. Typically, PR agencies work on fixed retainers with some out-of-pocket opportunistic budget. If PR is going to take over social media, budgets will need to grow significantly to include creative, content development, media and customer service aspects.How deep a PR firm becomes ingratiated in a company’s social media activities will depend on their capabilities, the organization’s internal resources and other agency relationships.

Creative, advertising agencies and social media firms still have a big part to play. The same old story with new players, agencies will have to work together to best serve a company’s interests.

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Article Tags: Earned Media, PR Firms, Social Media, Social Media Agencies, Social Media Firms

About the Author: Michele Harris RSS for Michele's articles - Visit Michele's website   Marketing expert Michele Harris has 20 years experience developing revenue-rich marketing programs for Fortune 500 companies and leading business development and client services for premier advertising agencies. As founder and Chief Matchmaker of Smarti Solutions–the leading marketing agency selection firm for the mid-size marketplace—Michele provides clients with sales and marketing consulting, an unparalleled, intimate knowledge of the boutique and mid-size agency landscape and an expert selection of qualified advertising agencies, PR firms, media and marketing companies across industries, capabilities and other criteria. Michele has been covered by The NY Times, NY Post, PR Week, Inc. Magazine, CNN’s Money Magazine and Crain's BtoB Magazine. To get sales and marketing guidance or assistance finding just the right advertising agency, PR firm or marketing company for your business’ needs, visit http://www.getsmarti.com        Click here to visit Michele's website More from Michele Harris Making Power Points Primary Research Development Issuing an RFP Online Advertising RFP Response What Clients Want in RFPs

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