Though most B2B companies are still experimenting with social media, there are enough examples out there to accept that hiring a PR pro in-house to manage a community is a profitable move. This is a critical aspect to the evolution of social media: the business model for delivering the service must be profitable to survive.
So the next question is, is the same true for hiring a PR firm to manage a community? The answer is far from clear.
With traditional media relations, PR agencies bring three critical economies of scale to the table:
1. Reporter relationships. These take years to build, but clients can buy immediate access through an agency.
2. Media savvy. This covers everything from understanding the culture of journalism to knowing how to play out a single announcement across multiple mediums, geographies and time frames. Senior PR pros have the most experience with this, and no company can hire as many senior PR people as a PR agency. So in-house PR gets the benefit of all that wisdom without the overhead.
3. Knowledgeable “arms and legs:” A group of junior- to mid-level communicators that operate as an extension of the in-house PR team and can be ramped up/down on an ongoing basis. Again, saves overhead.
There are others, but these three get to the heart of the economic model problem in B2B social media: Many B2B communities go SO deep, and have SO many sub-specialty community members, that these economies of scale may not apply.
What’s your opinion? To get things started, here are three arguments for and against. (None of these are absolutes, but are presented as such to make the issues clear.)
In-house PR can do it better/cheaper:
1. In-house PR always knows their own content better than their agencies. They can do a better job explaining it to community members. They get their information — and a community member’s questions answered — faster than their agencies can.
2. Turnover on the client side tends to be lower than with agencies, so the relationships built between the PR pro and the company’s community will be more stable, and so pay off more over time.
3. It’s the CLIENT’S community. They’ll care more and work harder.
4. Community members will trust an in-house person more than an agency person.
Agencies can do it better/cheaper:
1. On the whole, agencies spend more time communicating with audiences than in-house PR teams do. That means a greater understanding of a variety of community cultures and so more skill in interactions.
2. Agencies’ “five miles wide and an inch deep” view of a sector enables them to see the bigger picture, enabling an agency to approach community members more holistically than in-house PR pros might. This point of view also removes tunnel vision and lets companies spot potential crises faster.
3. Some agencies go very deep into certain B2B fields, and their relationships may be stronger with key community members (many of whom are customers) than the client.
4. If an agency pro is charged with managing a community, THEY’LL work harder than in-house pros, because that effort is 100% of what they’re being graded on. And they need their good reputation to win additional clients.
What’s YOUR opinion? Join the conversation below and answer the quick poll:
