Podcast: Why The Term “Social Media Agency of Record” Will Dissolve

I’m honored to be a guest on Mitch Joel‘s famed podcast, Six Pixels of Separation, to discuss my latest post that’s caught the Industry’s attention how Social Media Agencies are Turning to Ads. Mitch invited me on the podcast to discuss this further.

One of the assertions I make is the term “Social Media Agency of Record” (aka SMaoR) will eventually go by the wayside, as those pure play agencies are starting to move into advertising (starting with social ads), digital, interactive, and more. My take? We’ll just have a broader focus as social becomes nicely integrated with other digital efforts.

Listen in to the podcast below using the embed, or watch on Mitch’s website.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments, should the term Social media agency of Record dissolve? Or will this remain as a dedicated type of pure play firm?

12 Replies to “Podcast: Why The Term “Social Media Agency of Record” Will Dissolve”

  1. I don’t know if the term SMAOR will be long lived or short lived, but I can tell you that social and digital are not the same, serve dramatically different business outcomes, and will continue to be separate but strong compliments to each other.

    Digital has long been the realm of performance marketers. Brands buyers have largely been left out of digital – as evidenced by their continued large spend in traditional media (digital spend is $ 60B annually and traditional brand spend is 10x that at $ 600B annually).

    Social will end up being the preferred environment for brand engagement at scale, while digital as you see it today will continue to be the realm of the performance marketer. These two types of business outcomes – brand building ( brand mindshare, brand love, brand advocacy, brand awareness) vs. performance require different skills and a different approach to different types of clients. Large CPG brands will never be big digital spenders but may spend massively for brand engagement at scale in social.

    This is an exciting time without a doubt, but early in the evolution of authentic brand engagement at scale in social.

  2. Fascinating stuff. It is particularly interesting that the digital agencies reign was so short. I can understand the traditional agencies getting collapsed, but the digital ones had a very short stay on the pick.

  3. Fascinating stuff. It is particularly interesting that the digital agencies reign was so short. I can understand the traditional agencies getting collapsed, but the digital ones had a very short stay on the pick.

  6. Jeremiah, that is an interesting trend to note, but may need more vetting over time as you look at the flow and volume of brand dollars versus performance dollars from spenders versus vendors and which direction they are moving.

    Right now, I don’t think the category is well defined enough for crisp engagement versus performance debate, and only now are brands able to measure their social performance to make decisions or drive meaningful engagement at scale with their acquired fans and followers.  In fact media buying may end up being one of the drivers of engagement at scale, but I’d like to highlight that the direct performance digital marketer and the brand marketer have two unique sets of business outcomes requiring different skills going forward.  

    Separate but complimentary, or combined into a single firm or offering doesn’t really matter as long as clients are getting the right products, software and solutions to achieve their business outcomes.

    Thanks for providing the opportunity for dialog.  It will be interesting to see how your views play out in the market over time.

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  10. I don’t know about SMAOR, but reading the comments I get concerned about the ‘distinction’ between brand and performance. Brand aids performance and that should not be forgotten.

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