RSW/US/Second Wind: Agency New Business Survey-Initial Responses

We’re continuing to look at the results of our most recent new business survey we co-sponsored with Second Wind and wanted to take a look at some of the responses so far, specifically those referring to agency social media use. We’ll start with a mention from @robleavitt via Twitter:

“@RSWUS – nice work on the agency survey with Second Wind – distressing but important to see”

Adweek ran an article on the survey titled Agencies Slow to Harness Social Media, beginning the piece with the following:

Most agencies have a presence on social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, but infrequently use them to market themselves or pursue client prospects, according to a new survey from RSW/US and Second Wind.

And then continued:

The survey, which was conducted last month, provides yet another illustration of agencies not practicing what they preach to clients for the marketing of brands. This “cobbler’s son” syndrome is also evident in everything from Flash-heavy, information-poor agency Web sites to shops neglecting to buy sponsored links to their names on Google.

On Monday morning, UK based Tamar agency via Henry Ellis had some interesting insights on their blog, with the post Are marketing agencies practising what they preach?

According to the research, the most common social media ‘element’ that agencies are using is a LinkedIn account, closely followed by Facebook and Twitter. Just over 50% said they have a company blog, and a mere 17% are using Flickr. As some of the later questions show, I suspect that the LinkedIn stat may be a bit misleading – if my suspicions are correct, the person filling in the survey on behalf of their agency may sometimes have classed their own LinkedIn account as enough to tick the “yes” box. . . just ‘having’ these presences doesn’t mean they are necessarily being used at all, or used well!

And continued:

And finally:

In the interests of fairness, it’s worth once again acknowledging that these surveys are always dependent on the person who fills it in being the one who does all these activities, but whichever way you look at it, these answers would seem to imply that most marketing agencies aren’t really practicing what they preach.

Some definitive themes emerging from responses to-date. We’re extremely pleased that our survey results have reached so many outlets, blogs and Twitter feeds and wanted to present some of the chatter “out there” regarding the survey. We’ll continue to follow it and post our take on the results later this week.

Click here to download our survey

Adweek Piece here

Tamar piece here

Second Wind site here