The Wah Report by Jared Roy is always an intersting read and I was particularly interested in an article publshed recently titled Social media demands a reinvented agency the premise of which was that agencies are simply not set up to deliver effective social media campaigns becuase they think and act in campaigns rather than a longer term committment and also in straightforward creative rather than iterative creative development.
He concludes:
"An agency's new role in social media will be to maintain a brand's presence and extract various benefits that a brand should receive from making a social media commitment. To do this will require redefining the media agency's role. It will be far more consultative. It will interface with more facets of a client's organization. Tapping into all the ways an effective social media agency can deliver value to marketers, will set apart this new breed of agency. The skills required to coordinate effective social media management will command the margins required to support Madison Avenue.I see some shops moving in this direction. Do you? Who is the closest? If you are an agency or a brand that feels you are moving towards this type of relationship, tell us!"
A lot of what he says makes sense but I think he lets the Clients off the hook - yes agencies are set up to deliver campaigns and creativity usually on an ad hoc basis because they have to make money to pay the executives salaries and keep the network behemoth happy BUT that is also the way Clients want to work with most agencies and social media seems to be a barrier they cannot overcome and therfore dismiss out of hand withour proper consideration.
In my experience it is best approached as being integrated as part of another campaign, properly tracked and assessed and then based on success it can be viewed seperately in future activity to both be part of an run alongside all future campaigns.
However maybe the main barrier is that agencies are not prepared to rock the boat ....or do not know how to !