Ken Lee recently posted the question on LinkedIn Which agency type should handle PPC social media?  Which made me think:

What’s the best way to evaluate an agencies SEM and SMM capabilities?

FB requires skill in developing content and conversational strategies over time – so look for a hybrid digital/PR shop – someone who is good at churning out strategy driven, engaging content over the long haul.

PPC is more a balance of copy-haiku and analytics (tweaking PageRank, Quality Score etc). PPC creative is largely front loaded with technical/analytics skills carrying the load longterm. A straight digital agency would be your answer there.

If your single strategy integrates social and PPC under one umbrella then ideally choose one agency that can develop an overall program then execute t

he integrated tactics. If goals are unrelated however- for example Facebook ads driving traffic to the FB page to generate “likes” and Google driving traffic to Barbie_shoes e-com shopping, then you may want two agencies with focused (proven) strengths.

Many agencies you ask will tell you they are experts at both – and some are.  But (speaking generally) larger firms will be more likely have the bandwidth to do both well – maybe.

A good way to tell if there is competency: Ask see an integrated campaign that shows both creative and tactical cohesion across both channels. Then ask for analytics and compare progress overtime. That may give you a sense of how much attention they pay to each program once it goes into maintenance mode. They will probably balk at the analytics citing confidentiality, but you may be able to find that data on your own with a little digging.

Bottom line: So If your budget is limited you may actually get a more cost effective (not to mention creative) result in the long run from two smaller specialized shops.Get the strategy right first then do your homework on the backend capabilities.

Links:

• http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2454010
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
• http://markstevenson.com/blog/2010/08/the-limitless-expansion-of-creative-s…

IT LIVES! IT LIIIIIIVES! Print (in some cases) may not be as dead as we (i) tend to think.

I was grumbling the other day about how hard it is to read Vanity Fair in the bathroom (tmi?) because of the shear weight. But it turns out most people still prefer the print version of glossy pubs to tablet editions. Maybe this is just a function of evolving UI standards. Or is reading an actual magazine is just more fun?Vanity Fair certainly smells better in print than on my iPad.

Check out thearticle on eMarketer here

I shot this video of some rafters going into the Croton River right after Irene. Apparently one of these guys died later that night. My thoughts go out to his family and thanks to the FD/EMS Croton volunteers who tried so hard to save him and managed to rescue his friends.

Within 3 minutes of playing COD Modern Warfare last night I was called a “fagot” for getting killed quickly and heard some cracker kid say nigger about 10 times.

It was the first time I had to quit-out because I was so appalled by the way people were behaving in multi-player.  My friend Brian says x-box is 10x worse.

With no simple way to enforce meaningful consequences for obviously offensive behavior and no way to reinforce good behavior a vocal minority always runs amok.  (for the vocal minority: You can tell the difference between good an bad behavior in this way:  If we were in an elevator, would you say it to my face?).

This obviously extends beyond the fictional world of online combat, where testosterone infused semi-children are pumped up on virtual death-match violence (not that there is anything wrong with that). Political zealotry, reply-all email rants, e-infidelity via Facebook “find classmates” buttons and commuter train cellphone users seem to dominate our both our real and virtual public spaces.

Maybe Web 3.0 can be about tools and analytics that nudge online behavior closer to something like elevator etiquette.

What is your worst experience with this? Or maybe you think I’m just prematurely-grumpy. Let me know (in a nice way please)