Which Agencies "Get" Social Media? According to ZDNet Readers, Horn Group Does

In a research report released today, ZDNet social media blogger Jennifer Leggio provides a snapshot of the PR agency landscape in terms of which agencies are "best attuned to social media and are developing the most beneficial social programs for their clients."

The data, collected over the past several months, includes 500+ survey responses from senior marketers mostly employed at enterprise technology, general consumer, retail and SaaS / Web 2.0 companies. That being said, Jennifer admits that her findings represent a "small yet solid data sample."

While some of the results were positive:

55% of respondents "agree" or "strongly agree" that their agency communications are informative and on time

There is clearly still a lot of work to do:

Only 20% of respondents "agree" or "strongly agree" that their agency recommends social media strategy besides tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook) to support business endeavors

So, whether an agency “gets it” or not, we all must continue to learn, and fast:

78% of respondents believe it is "extremely important" their agency understands social media strategy

One of the things we are most proud of at Horn Group is being named as one of only six agencies "consistently named as viable considerations for clients considering an agency switch." According to Jennifer’s research, "more than 40 percent of respondents claimed that they are considering switching agencies." In addition, out of 106 agencies mentioned in the survey that "get it," Horn Group is among the top 10 most mentioned.

A client recently said to me, "I like Horn Group, because you guys do strategic marketing, not just blasting out press releases." Certainly these findings are further validation of that sentiment.

Comments

[Nicole Daley]

Congratulations Horn Group!

[Joe Sleadge]

Sounds like you are working your own internal PR machine. Give me customer results, not some PR focused blah, blah, survey.

[Joe Ciarallo]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the comment, but as I mentioned in the post, I was referencing a ZDNet survey, not our own.

As far as results, I would recommend checking out our recent "Does Your PR Drive Leads" webinar, in which we ran through a client case study that showed PR generated 1500 more qualified leads than advertising over a six month period.

http://www.slideshare.net/shannonlatta/does-your-pr-drive-leads-presentation

Joe