In this article in BizReport by Helen Leggatt entitled, "Marketing agencies lack social media know-how," there is this quote by Jim Nail, chief marketing and strategy officer at TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony: "You get the sense that agencies talk a good game… They put up a good presentation about what social media is, but when you get to implementing campaigns, the day-to-day management skills are not meeting the marketers' expectations."

You can say that again. I owned an establishment firm once. I know how to talk a good game. As long as the agency has that skill, it can keep talking the good game to bring new clients in through the front door at a rate more or less equal to the the count of disgruntled clients exiting out the back.

A more important concern or question — and one I've been trying to figure out for some time now– is why are the traditionalists so slow to the fair? My leading theory so far: for a traditional agency to master social media is akin to a pharma company inventing an over the counter remedy to their own, leading, expensive, perscription drug. Much of social  media can be DIY (or DWA, as in, Do Without Agencies).

The article is actually about the risk of having an agency faking it on your behalf. Summarizing the feeling of a range of corporate types, Ms. Leggatt writes: "…by applying old models to social media, traditional agencies could do more harm than good."  In my experience, that happens to be very, very true!

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Here at AgencyNext it has been a horrendous February, so my apologies to anyone and everyone (especially out at Copywrite, Inc. in Nevada) who noticed I'd gone missing for most of this dreadful month. I'm back. Happily, as the weather is improving, so am I. The sun is up most days on my way to work and I don't have to turn on my headlights going home most days until half-way there. Still, it is about 13 degrees right now and tonight we're expecting five to eight inches of snow.

Starting Monday, I'll be back watching and ranting about the social media scene and talking about a new client or two. Now I have to run because I'm having a special event for two, with me and the last day of February as the guests of honor, so I can kiss this creep of a leap year February good riddance.

'til Monday then…

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Here's the news release Microsoft issued Thursday — Valentine's Day — with this headline: Fourteen leaders promoted as company matches leadership talent to expanding business priorities. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

The headline gets paid off in the first sentence of the first paragraph: Microsoft Corp. today announced a series of executive promotions — seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents — reflective of the company's commitment to build and maintain a strong and dynamic management team across its unique portfolio of businesses. Now how can you argue with that, right?

Well, because it's a reorg, that's why. But you'd never know it from this news release. Instead, you'd have to figure that out on your own — which admittedly seems pretty easy — or you could rely on The New York Times. The headline on their piece calls it an Executive Shuffle, but writer Saul Hansell doesn't take very long to get to the point. He uses the dreaded "r" word right in the first paragraph:

If there was apprehension at Yahoo already about the prospect of a takeover by Microsoft, the fear will no doubt increase as those in Sunnyvale study the details of Microsoft’s reorganization announced Thursday.

This post isn't about Microsoft, per se. It's about traditional PR's ability to ignore the elephant in the room while thinking you're stupid enough to go along with that charade.

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