Survey Says

This article pertains to our classroom discussions regarding the mistakes some businesses make in entering the social media realm. We discussed how a company should not jump into social media because everyone else is, rather they should step back, analyze and truly understand what direction they are going in and why.

TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony took a poll of over 60 marketers in North America, France and Great Britain to see how they are getting by with social media, what has been implemented, how and why, and as TNS put it, "Agencies don't get it."

The issue seems to be that marketers/ad agencies are treating their social media channels as they would traditional media. They aren't grasping a full understanding of the differences in approach for a blog as opposed to a traditional ad campaign.

One marketing specialist quoted in the article seems to think that traditional marketing firms are too stuck in their old ways and still refer to compensation models which were created for closed media and don't necessarily apply to open media.

This seems to imply that traditional ad agencies need to either give themselves a make-over and focus on social media training of some sort for their employees or they may become obsolete along with closed media.