May 11th, 2009
Social PR Survey II: Continued disconnect between clients, agencies
Now that we know who participated, let’s take a look at what they are saying. As I mentioned, the majority of respondents feel as if their agencies have stellar training and social media programs. And, from my own experience, many of them do. However, not all of them do, which either shows that some of the responses were very spun or some of the respondents don’t understand what their clients are truly seeking. A quick snapshot on the respondents’ views of training:
- 67.9 percent did not study PR (note: this is likely a good thing)
- History and political science seemed to be popular majors
- Very low levels of folks who majored in business or studied general marketing
- Only half started out in PR, 80 percent of which expectedly started in agencies
I’m a little disappointed in this section, not due to the responses, but due to our setting up the survey in a way that didn’t capture what we’d set out to capture. We were hoping to really dig into how prepared entry level agency folks feel to help their clients truly address business needs but we came up short. Many of the respondents feel that when they started at agencies they were given proper business training versus just media relations, editorial calendars and awards. However, a lot of the people Nicole and I have spoken directly to about their training feel otherwise. In the end, however, I want to remind agency leaders that business training needs to start at the entry level, and sticking an account coordinator in a corner with a calendar does not help clients.
Next: Now it gets interesting –>
Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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