Quest for A New Agency

Marketing Agencies & Social Media

Quest for the New Agency:
What Marketers Need Most
Featuring the 5 Habits of Successful New Agencies

Thie eBook was authored by Chris Brogan,
President of New Marketing Labs, Co-Author
of “Trust Agents” with Julien Smith

The Quest for the New Agency

The Agency Evolution

Marketers are being challenged, more than ever before, to live with not only smaller
budgets, but broader expectations of what can be accomplished with limited
resources, both human and capital. Marketing efficiency and adaptability are key in
a business environment where risk tolerance is low, but the demand for
differentiation has never been higher.

To balance the two, marketers must change not only their spending focus and
toolset, but their mindset and approach to building awareness and affection for
their brands. Online audiences are broad, nimble, and scattered across multiple
online channels. The noise level is high: brands are competing heavily for their share
of not just sales, but advocacy and awareness. And consumers hold new and
valuable currencies: their attention, loyalty, and recommendation.

“Clients complained that their agencies -- creative, media, public relations, design and others -- typically treat social
channels like blogs as traditional media. In other cases, their ideas are not backed up by practical skills in the area.
What's more, one client pointed out that his agencies have little of their own experience using social networks or
video-sharing sites for themselves.”
- AdWeek “Social Media: My Agency Doesn’t Get it” February 28, 2008

Social media and social communications hold great potential. They're changing the
way companies present themselves, and the way their customers help build and
shape their brand. They're providing a platform for humanized business, and true
dialogue between businesses and the people that drive and support them. Push
marketing is being replaced with collaborative, conversational and content driven
communication that puts people back at the center of business.

The well-equipped agency - versed in the methods and mindset for social media -
will be a corporate marketers' strongest ally.

www.awarenessnetworks.com 2


The State of Now

According to Forrester's recent report, US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 to
2014, interactive marketing spending will near $55 billion and represent 21% of all
marketing spend by 2014 as marketers shift dollars away from traditional media and
toward interactive, social, and online marketing. And data from eMarketer shows
that worldwide social network spending alone will rise an estimated 18% next year
to over $2.6 billion.

Social media is gaining traction in the marketing
world, and it's no longer just for early adopters.
Customers are asking for brands to be present,
accessible, and available. Social channels give them
that access, and companies are recognizing that they
need to be participating and engaged online where
their customers live and interact.

Budgets are declining. Expectations are changing.
Marketing is evolving. And agencies that focus their
dollars, efforts, and expertise on stagnant strategies
for their clients will struggle to keep up with the new
media era.

On the upside, well thought out social media
strategies can be more cost effective and flexible to
execute than many traditional programs. Marketers and their agencies have power
to do more with less, leverage their existing budgets, and explore more community-
driven communication with lower risk and higher potential reward. While marketers
are focused on reducing spend overall, they're paying much closer attention to
social media and its impact on business.

Today's successful marketing agencies understand - and can translate into business
value terms - the new landscape of social communication. The most successful
agencies – The New Agencies – that have been most successful in the new media
era demonstrate 5 habits that differentiate them from traditional agencies.

3 www.awarenessnetworks.com


The 5 Habits of Successful New Agencies

Leading with Strategy

Without question, today's agency has to not only understand the basic function and culture of social
media, but they need to be able to blend and bridge new marketing strategies with more traditional
approaches. Brands have invested heavily in their existing marketing efforts and the social media
strategy needs to be woven into the fabric of what they're already doing.

Marketers will look to savvy, informed agencies to help establish a foothold for social media inside
Photo Credit: Ocell their organizations through strategy and education. A critical piece of successful social media
execution, the planning process, can be led by an agency to help marketers determine:

* What audiences they want to reach through social media and why
* What their communities are looking for through careful listening and monitoring of relevant
conversation
* The objectives, tied into larger business goals, that they're going to measure their efforts against
* A road map to drive strategy and execution, including an audit of existing efforts and aligning
social media within them
* What metrics and measurements will demonstrate success

“The value in agency partnerships will be not on a project execution basis, but
on a long term guidance basis with an investment in a marketers' engaged
community.”
Culturally, marketers will look for allies that can help them build internal consensus, too. Where
traditional agencies were often charged with mass production and execution of messaging and
campaigns, the new agencies are community cultivators and educators. From teaching companies
about the overall social shift in brand communications to explaining how various tools and networks
fit into the larger marketing mix, agencies can be a credible, external voice that helps marketers make
the case for social media inside their walls.

The New Agency will also understand and embrace their role as mentor and educator. Social media
success depends heavily on customers and communities feeling an authentic connection to brands
and the humans behind them. They want to interact, connect, and know that companies are invested
in long-term dialogue with them on a personal basis - not through the filter of an agency.

Rather than creating and delivering finite projects on behalf of companies, successful agencies will
play the role of guide for social media initiatives. They'll work with marketers to establish strategy
and objectives, but hand execution and long term responsibility back to the company. The value in
agency partnerships will be not on a project execution basis, but on a long term guidance basis with
an investment in a marketers' engaged community.



Sustainable Creativity

The very nature of successful marketing campaigns is changing. Traditional
campaign mindset involved a finite initiative - with a launch and an end date - that
touted features, advantages, and benefits all through carefully crafted messaging.
The intent was to capture attention of people and, while you had them, make them
hear what you wanted to say. When the campaign was over, you counted success
as having delivered that message as many times as possible to as many people as
possible in hopes that the ratio was large enough to generate a sufficient
percentage of leads.
Photo Credit: dalydose

Today's marketers seek something broader from agencies. The social web isn't a
series of disparate campaigns with start and end dates. Marketers need to keep
their conversations fresh, relevant, and continually evolving to meet the needs and
interests of their audience.

New Agencies will help their clients deliver helpful, useful, and valuable information
to their customers and communities on a regular basis. Campaigns will be about
related and interconnected pieces of actionable information - an ecosystem of
resources - rather than sound bites and taglines. Campaigns will become more
about unifying people around a common interest or cause, and less about short
bursts of attention centered around clever creative or promotions.

Creativity and cleverness in marketing today is about "stickiness": the power of an
idea to rally not just attention, but investment. Brands today belong to their
communities as much as their creators. Marketers and agencies together can be the
catalyst for social creativity and branding that is captivating, sustainable, and is
driven by the people that know it best: customers.

Considering the Whole Enterprise

Yesterday's marketers and agencies functioned in a vertical silo. It was their job to
communicate, to broadcast, to deliver messages inside their own context within an
organization, rarely touching other departments or functions unless absolutely
necessary. It was they that presented and managed the brand, from within the
confines of their department.

Today's marketers and agencies have to change mentality. Social media has
implications and impact outside the marketing and communication areas of an
organization. It impacts customer service, sales, research and development, brand
Photo Credit: cwalker71 management, even human resources. People that connect with companies through
social media don't segment themselves into departments. They want to reach
people that are accessible, human, and helpful. And the particular job description of
those company connections is of little consequence outside the walls.

Agency partners and marketers have to work together to deploy social media
strategies in consideration of all the potential touchpoints inside and outside the



organization. Agencies will need to look beyond a client's communication efforts
and understand how a new level of community engagement will affect various
departments and roles. Internally, agencies can help marketers find, identify, and
tap the enthusiastic members of the team, and retool company resources and roles
to accommodate and incorporate social media initiatives.

Home Base and Identity

Part of social media's attraction is that many tools and sites are free or incredibly
inexpensive to use. They provide instant, flexible access for marketers that are
looking to make connections with their community without risking their precious
budgets on expensive (and marginally effective) outreach campaigns.

Building outposts on sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter can
be a simple way of reaching customers and prospects where they spend their time,
and giving them a touchpoint for a brand or company. Having presence and
availability on the social networks that your customers and clients' customers
prefer is a critical piece of smart social media.

Equally if not more important, however, is having a "home base" to which
customers and prospects can return and explore a more meaningful, connected
relationship with your company. Not only are native sites and communities easier
Photo Credit: catd_mitchell
to brand and maintain within a company's image and vision, they can grow and
evolve to meet the changing needs of the community over time. Native sites can be
home to rich resource libraries, user-generated content areas like blogs and forums,
profiles for members, and strong features for sharing and connecting within a more
niche, focused community that broader social networks may not provide.

In addition, using only third-party outposts means that valuable data about your
community - the people most interested in connecting with you - is housed
externally. By building a native community, marketers can better protect the
valuable connections and information they've worked hard to build, and provide a
home for content and resources that is secure, independently managed, and
scalable for the long term.

Marketers will look to their agencies to help recommend strategies for balance:
setting up outposts on social networks that make sense for them, but building
deeper and richer destinations for their customers and communities as a whole.



Analytics, Measurement and ROI

Ask any marketer their biggest challenge in making the case for social media, and
they'll likely tell you it's measurement and demonstrating ROI. With marketing
budget down, marketers are focusing resources on the areas most likely to
generate a return. New agencies must have a deep and confident grasp on all of
the ways to assess and measure social media success, including the integration of
old metrics and new.

As trusted advisors, agencies will be tasked with helping marketers not only
Photo Credit: HeyThereSpaceman. measure future efforts, but benchmark current ones. Setting baselines and
understanding how key metrics tie back to goals and objectives form strong
analytics that can inform key business decisions.

Social agencies and marketers will need to look at key indicators such as:

* Awareness metrics like traffic, membership, and media coverage both online and
off
* Engagement metrics like comments, votes, ideas submitted or content created
* Revenue Generation metrics like lead generation, conversion, and sales
* Loyalty and Affinity metrics like referrals, recommendations, or reviews

The new agencies can deliver incredible value for marketers by helping them not
only measure and analyze their efforts, but help draw conclusions based on that
information, tying them directly back to initial goals.

Strategy for social media will never be static. Behaviors and actions in social media
are simple to measure, but more difficult to interpret and attribute to revenue
growth and cost savings. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of particular
initiatives and having the courage to adapt and change tactics will be key. Swift
action and nimble redeployment will be a mainstay for marketers and agencies,
turning traditional process on its head. And ultimately, proving the value of social
media by demonstrating relevant results will be the only analysis that truly matters.



Community as an Anchor

Community is the new organic foundation for branding. It's where a brand lives, thrives, and
evolves. No two communities are exactly alike, but there are affinities that draw members
together, and can help serve as a catalyst for socializing company communication. Marketers
and agencies alike can tap these characteristics and shared interests to rapidly build a
community framework and foundation for social media outreach.

Innovation
The Innovation community is built around community-generated ideas. Whether you're
creating a new product or service, looking for new product ideas, or doing research into the
preferences and feedback of your community, forming an Innovation community gives you
the power to solicit input through voting and feedback mechanisms from the people driving
your business. And giving your customers a voice in your future makes them feel invested,
connected, and valuable.

Corporate Voice
Your internal community has something to say. They have ideas to share, content to
contribute, discussions to start with the outside world. The Corporate Voice community
allows you to speak to your market in a personal, “humanized” voice and receive direct
feedback on your ideas while giving your audience and customers a platform for interaction
and communication with you. Discussions can range from industry trends and topics to
product development, or even give your executives an accessible, visible touchpoint with the
people that drive their business. It's a window into the company culture and people that
gives a face and a personality to a brand.

User-Generated Campaigns
Traditional marketing loves contests, campaigns, and awareness programs. But they're finite,
and often don't have much of a shelf life after the promotion period ends. User-Generated
Campaign communities keep people connected by cultivating community around a contest or
campaign. It encourages users to participate, vote on other people's content, and interact
with other contributors. And whether the campaign goal is lead generation, PR, a product
launch or branding, community members have a more personalized experience that will keep
them connected after the campaign is over.

Loyalty
For a fan of your product or service, access and connection is one of the greatest rewards
they can receive. Loyalty communities are focused on thanking your customers for their
business, and giving them exclusive rights and privileges as a reward for their business.
Membership in these communities is often a privilege in itself, and community members have
a sense of importance and "insider" status that connects them more deeply with the
company and other community members that share their affinity. Companies can mine a
wealth of information from loyalty members that are eager and willing to share their input,
feedback, and ideas about why they love their brand.



Enthusiasts
Some of the strongest communities are brought together because of a common passion.
Members self-identify and connect with others that share their enthusiasm, share ideas and
thoughts, and contribute feedback. Often, these communities aren't focused on a specific
brand or product, but rather a level above - on an idea, topic, or activity that's connected to a
brand in a relative way. For these types of community members, belonging to a group of
people that share their passion is part of the reward for participation.

Associations & Subscribers
If your product or service is based on membership or subscriptions, there can be immense
value in building community around and for those members. Association and Subscription
communities allow companies to create special categories or areas that support different
needs. Differentiating public areas from membership-only areas can also give subscribers
access to richer, more in-depth content, and give the company direct access to customers in a
more privatized forum. Members can connect to each other, share best practices, and
communicate ideas to the company in a more exclusive format.

Peer Support
Communities can be led, grown, and sustained by their members. Peer support communities
focus on the member-to-member connection, bringing people with similar experiences and
needs together. Members can get help from others, and enthusiastic and experienced
individuals can emerge into positions of community leadership. Successful peer support
communities are provided strong and consistent access to company contacts for information
and resources, but often use their own knowledge and experience to contribute ideas and
solutions to other members.

Events
Like campaigns and promotions, events have a finite timeframe. Creating a community
around an event can not only create and maintain buzz for the event itself, but stimulate
dialogue among attendees, speakers, organizers, and guests. Membership is driven through
event registration, but the community can connect, interact, and communicate long after the
event itself is over. Participating in event communities as an entry point can also encourage
members to participate and connect with the company in other ways in the future.

Marketers are looking to agencies today to help them identify their communities and
understand how to unite and connect them. More than just understanding a brand promise,
the agency role is now about understanding the people that drive a brand, rally and gather
around it, and how to communicate with them in the most human way possible. New
agencies are community cultivators, encouraging participation and interaction, and guiding
their clients to tap the potential of social media and two-way conversations with their
customers.



Building on Proven Successes – A few examples

Edelman and the American Heart Association:
Go Red For Women: http://www.goredforwomen.org/

A great example of a User Generated community, the Go Red For Women movement was
started by the American Heart Association in collaboration with their agency, Edelman. The
community celebrates the passion and power of women who are active in the fight against
heart disease. What started as a grass-roots campaign has blossomed into a national
movement with millions of members championing the cause, and earned them an award
from PR Week for Nonprofit Campaign of the year in 2009. Outposts on social networks like
Facebook and Flickr combined with a native community and offline initiatives help the Go Red
movement stay active and driven by their passionate community.

Hill Holiday and CVS:
For All The Ways You Care: http://www.forallthewaysyoucare.com/

CVS Pharmacy and their agency, Hill Holiday, wanted to celebrate the role of women as
nurturers and caregivers. They launched the community in 2009 after a successful television
advertising campaign and contest. The foundation for the site is sharing of stories,
experiences, and narratives among members, and now celebrates a strong and growing
membership. Profiles help connect members to each other, forums offer support and
conversation, and resources on the community help direct members to everything from
parenting to adoption, illness, and relationships.

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www.awarenessnetworks.com


ASOS - Enthusiast Community
ASOSLife is a commuity of fashion enthusiasts hosted by ASOS.com. The community has
hundreds of thousands of members and drives ongoing dialog between the brand and it’s
customers around fashion related topics.

AIRMILES - Loyalty Community
AIRMILES is a loyalty community exclusivly for AIRMILES members to share tips & tricks, share vaca-
tion experiences through photo galleries and engage in discussions.

Marriott – Corporate Voice Community
The “corporate voice” style blog that is hosted by Marriott CEO Bill Marriott called “Marriott
on the Move,” has been responsible, says Marriott, for $4M in additional revenues. Not bad
for a person writing about their passion—especially considering that in that business most
dollars are probably hitting the bottom line.

Proctor & Gamble – Innovation Community
The Social Media Lab is an online community that connects P&G internal brands to external
“innovation partners” so they can network and collaborate on social media projects.

Constant Contact – Peer Support
ConnectUp! The professional network for customers to communicate, connect, share
knowledge, ask questions, and get inspiration.

Hersey’s – User Generated Content
Hershey’s has embraced the Web 2.0 community and has even chosen to power six diﬀerent
online brand communities to engage and share content for varying interests.

Earth Knowledge – Association/Subscribers
An interactive resource that provides communication and knowledge-sharing between
organizations that interact around environmental issues.

Note:
Awareness, Inc and New Marketing Labs, LLC Grants permission for re-use of the content herein with
the understanding that the user will cite the author, Chris Brogan (President, New Marketing Labs)
and include a reference to both Awareness, Inc. (www.awarenessnetworks.com) and New Marketing
Labs, LLC (www.newmarketinglabs.com).

11
www.awarenessnetworks.com

social media marketing software

Contact Information: About Awareness

Awareness, Inc. Awareness helps companies build and operate branded Web 2.0 communities. These online
880 Winter Street, Suite 300 communities let customers, prospects, employees and partners connect with each other and share
Waltham, MA 02451 content. At the core of the Awareness solution is an on-demand social media platform that
combines the full range of Web 2.0 technologies—blogs, wikis, discussion groups, social networking,
United States
podcasts, RSS, tagging, photos, videos, mapping, etc.—with security, control and content moderation.
Tel: 1 866 487 5623
Awareness builds these features into complete communities for companies, or customers use the
Fax: 1 781 622 2378 Awareness API and widgets to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into their own web properties. Major
corporations such as McDonald’s, Kodak, the New York Times Company, Northwestern Mutual and
Awareness Canada Procter & Gamble use Awareness to build brand loyalty, generate revenue, and drive new forms of
marketing. Find out more at http://www.awarenessnetworks.com.
5050 South Service Road, Suite 100
Burlington, ON L7L 5Y7
Canada
Tel: 1 866 487 5623
Fax: 1 905 632 4922
© 2009 AWARENESS, INC.

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