Walking into the Capgemini office at 623 Fifth Avenue this morning was quite surreal. After a stint in the PR agency world at Makovsky + Company, I have returned to the company where I cut my teeth on marketing and communications. I decided to return corporate side because I believe social media should primarily be managed in-house. As important, this new communications era demands marketers have a deeper level of industry expertise than they did before. Communication generalists need not apply. Pros with a nuanced understanding of the industry of their business line will thrive.
It might be helpful to outline the top lessons I learned from agency life. Before I go into those lessons, I have to give props to the entire Makovsky + Company team. When it comes to B2B public relations, each and every team member knows whats what.
So without further adieu, and without holding any punches, here are the ideas, beliefs and lessons from my agency journey.
- Skills – The most in-demand communication skills cut across traditional and social media relations and are timeless. If you want to be a great communications pro beef up on writing, interpersonal relationship building and creative brainstorming.
- Competition – PR agencies are now in the same competitive set as advertising agencies, digital media agencies, and strategy consulting firms. Yes, many of you are now competing with McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and even Capgemini to help other firms build a new infrastructure and governance model for the social era.
- Role in Social – PR agencies can add a tremendous amount of value in performing social media audits and consulting on social media strategies. However, day to day execution of the social media strategy is best left those in-house. Conversely, execution of traditional media relations should primarily be the responsibility of the agency.
- Can’t We All Get Along – Agency peeps need to take more time to learn what their in-house partners do every day. And corporate communication managers, go over to your agency more often and work together.
- Finally – What an exciting time for all of us in marketing and communications. This is going to be a fun ride.
How do you delineate the role of the agency and of in-house employees in marketing and communications? How would you want to split it up?
Photo courtesy of Geofftheref
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Jonathan
Just heard about your return to CapGemini and wanted to wish you the best of luck.
Though still on the agency side side, I’d like to echo you comments about social media execution should be handled in house. While so much of the surrounding management–competitor analysis, monitoring, crisis flags, industry trends and the like–can be handled by your agencies, unless they are truly entrenched in the business, as partners, they can’t capture nuances.
It’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, clients don’t have the bandwidth to fully execute and leverage all social media channels and therefore need agencies to help. On the other hand, agencies tend to be kept at an arms length from the day-to-day business of clients and can easily miss, overlook or not know to watch for key milestones impacting clients.
Keep me posted on your efforts and successes with the CapGemini social media footprint.
Marian
@mariancutler
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