Future of Online seminar: “Agencies should use social media to move into PR and CRM”

Agencies are “missing a trick” with social media and should be using it to move into PR and CRM, according to OPera’s head of digital buying, Adam Pace.

Speaking at Friday’s MediaTel Group Future of Online seminar, Pace referred to the “Toyota debacle” – where the car company initially neglected to run any UK marketing about the forced recall of 5 million faulty vehicles – as an example of where social media could have really helped a brand.

He made it clear that social media does come with some warnings attached. “It’s a dangerous space,” he said, with consumers able to comment and interact sometimes negatively with brands. “That’s why we should keep it as more of a relationship management tool than a media one… You have to let go of a lot of control on social media.”

Ian Dowds, UK vice president of Specific Media, agreed that a big concern regarding social media is “letting go”. “I heard that 7 out of 10 social media campaigns fail,” he said, “Either because of a reluctance to let go or a setting of unrealistic expectations of value.”

For Fox Interactive Media’s VP commercial director Simon Daglish, one of the biggest pluses social media can provide is engagement. “Social media is in a unique position – it can integrate the actual product, for example, webisodes and Spotify playlists.  Advertisers think they come to the internet for scale but I think they come for engagement,” he said.

Listen to more from Daglish –