Most people would agree that social media is a good thing, right?  I mean, come on, we all get excited when we see that someone has commented on one of our facebook photos or when someone has started following us on twitter;  it’s easy to get sucked in.  What I’m wondering though, is if this new idea of advertising online is changing the old ideas about advertising and PR.

This year, McDonalds hired one of the first ever Chief of Social Media.  How crazy is that?  I thought I was just wasting my time creating silly facebook pages and updating my tweets but now I see that I can make an entire career out of it!  Every company has a twitter and facebook page now, and let’s face it, if they don’t, they aren’t being competitive.   What I’m curious about however, is this:  does this new social media obsession put traditional careers in PR and marketing in jeopardy?  According to David Meerman Scott, who wrote “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” (a great read by the way; I highly suggest it) thinks that social media and the world of the internet will in fact challenge the old job functions of marketing and PR professionals.

Scott says “Prior to the web, organizations had only two significant choices to attract attention:  Buy expensive advertising or get third-party ink from the media.”  He continues to write “Organizations that understand the New Rules of Marketing and PR develop relationships directly with consumers…”

So, I ask this again:  If the traditional role of advertising (buying expensive ad space) and PR (getting mentions from the media) are seemingly obsolete due to the new concept of reaching customers directly through social media efforts, then couldn’t several traditional advertising and public relations agencies go out of business?

I’ve noticed that many traditional advertising agencies and pr firms have started to embrace this trend by including social media services in their list of specialties.   However, one thing I have seen that interests me is how they phrase these services.  They seem to Lightly threaten potential clients by saying things like “sure social media could help your business but only if done properly.”  It’s almost like they want to stop clients from managing their social media accounts on their own.  It makes me wonder if there is a fear that organizations will lean towards doing their social media themselves rather than go to an agency and therefore the agency feels more inclined to suggest that only advertising professionals know how to social network properly.

My opinion?  I think agencies are a bit fearful, and they are definitely not wrong to be.  The concept of social media advertising is still pretty new and it is only going to get bigger.  My advice?  Get a twitter!  I know, I know, a bunch of you either groaned or dry heaved but seriously, do it!  In fact, get everything!  Start a blog, get a linkedin, take at least one picture a day and post it to flickr.  This is the new frontier!  Do you really want to be left behind?  Embrace social media;  it’s here to stay.

Comments?  I’d love to hear them

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