I have just returned from Social Media Week in New York where I managed to attend quite a few events (although you can never quite get to as many as you hope to.)
There was one panel session in particular, entitled: Pay Attention! Social Media Listening Done Right, that really bought it home to me that ad agencies and PR agencies really are offering identical services in some areas. The panel, moderated by Michael Learmonth of Ad Age, comprised of leaders from JWT, Radian6, BuddyMedia and PepsiCo, among others.
The discussion covered many of the subjects you would expect around social listening. In fact, if I had shut my eyes (and just listened) it could equally have been moderated by PR Week and attended by any of the big PR agencies along with PepsiCo and Radian6. The discussion would have been identical.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was– especially starting with the fact that JWT, an advertising agency, was sponsoring such a panel. However, I quickly got over that and went into “only the paranoid survive” mode.
Having worked in a PR agency environment for 20 years and having lost out to ad agencies around web 1.0, I suddenly thought that maybe ad agencies have moved into the listening space (which, let’s face it, has its roots in the work of PR and content monitoring) and are doing things differently, or worse still, doing it a lot better. I was reassured.
I must confess I was really impressed with Kyle Monson (Senior Technology Editor, JWT.) I just liked his no-nonsense approach. Shiv Singh of PepsiCo also made some interesting points and is clearly pushing the boundaries in some areas as befits their focus on social media. When it came to getting tangible examples of where listening had resulted in an impactful action, I thought the examples were either absent or a bit weak. Then again it isn’t easy!
So the blurring of lines between advertising and PR is complete, at least where social listening is concerned. However, I was surprised that the discussion didn’t talk about the role of mining search data in listening and only one of the panelists, Brian Clark from GMD Studios, mentioned the role of mining web referral analytics data in listening. At least the good news is that there still is room for people to innovate in the space regardless of whether they have an advertising or a PR background.
In the end, maybe it will be a draw this time around.
(Stayed tuned for an in-depth follow-up post next week.)