Saturday, March 21, 2009

Can you back up your interactive prowess???

I stumbled upon this blog entry recently and it made me scratch my head a bit: "How Can You Advise Clients On Social Media If You Don't Use It? " - http://tinyurl.com/c4my2t. The context of the post assumed that the employees of top interactive agencies should have robust LinkedIn profiles to justify how interactive savvy their agencies are... Thus, if you don't have a robust and active LinkedIn profile, how can your agency claim its interactive prowess, especially as it pertains to social media and utilities...

Now, I thought to myself, ad agencies are made up of all sorts of people and LinkedIn, and other social utilities, are only frequently used by people who have the intention to do so, whereas other people just use them because it's easy to upload your address book and connect with other people who happen to subscribe to that social network.

Do you think this makes sense? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. Are you - as an employee of an interactive agency - someone who doesn't heavily use LinkedIn or other social utilities, measure up as a strong barometer of your agency's ability to perform as a top interactive shop, and even more so have the ability to succeed in social media planning??? Discuss...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your post. I struggle with this balance all of the time and here’s how I’ve decided to approach the subject with my current and potential clients. Developing a social media network – on Facebook, LinkedIN, etc – takes time. I do not have a lot of free time. I have a son that’s 10 months old and I’m working on a lot of exciting, great projects with clients. So no, I don’t have time to develop my social networking site into all it can be, per se, but I recommend you follow my lead.

Sure, you can build a network of hundreds of friends on Facebook, or a complete and detailed profile on LinkedIN and follow thousands of people on Twitter… but to what end? What is your goal?

My goal on the social networking sites is to increase my familiarity with the streghts and limitations of the site, gauge the social norms and collect information that I can apply to other areas of my life (work or personal) and to THAT END, I’ve built up ENOUGH of a network and I have ENOUGH friends.

Don’t mistake activity for productivity. And with consultants billing by the hour, I’d recommend clients forgoing the “complete” bio for a working bio.

::| stu.Dio |:: Digital With a Twist! said...

Thanks Kristi. I think your comment is spot on. I know I am an avid user of social utilities, but that's me - totally addicted - but not everyone is. Yet that doesn't mean that you don't have the gusto or the brains to serve your clients Web 2.0 needs well. Great comment also highlighting how some people abuse sites like LinkedIn...