Co-opetition Anyone? An Agency Perspective

Below you’ll find a post I contributed with friends, Todd Defren of SHIFT and Adam Cohen of Rosetta. The intro was penned by Mr. Cohen — the write-ups on each of our respective companies were written by, well, us. You can find Todd and Adam’s correlating posts here and here.

Changing markets cause change for those who serve them. As businesses adapt and figure out how social media will impact how they conduct day to day functions, service providers are adapting too. These days companies have a high probability of encountering any of the following providing social media services:

• Sole prioprietor (independent contractor)
• Social media agency (small, medium and increasingly larger)
• PR agency (traditional, new media, all sizes)
• Digital or interactive agency (all sizes)
• Advertising agency (all sizes, but particularly the big dogs)
• CRM consulting firm
• Database marketing agency

Given the overlap in the “social” space, my friends and fellow agency movers-n-shakers, Todd Defren of SHIFT and Adam Cohen of Rosetta, have come together with me to create a brief description of what we do and how we do it to bring some clarity to the role each of our companies play in the space. We also talk about when we our companies might not be the best fit for a job (how’s that for transparency?)

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This is my company…

Rosetta is the largest independent digital agency in the US. Using a patented approach to segmentation, called Personality® Segmentation (yep, it’s patented and a differentiator), which provides deep insights into the drivers of consumer behavior, Rosetta’s teams translate these insights into relevant marketing solutions to attract, retain and strengthen a brand’s most valuable customer relationships. With 720+ team members, Rosetta is headquartered in Princeton, NJ, with offices in NYC, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, Denver and most recently Toronto.

What we do…

We help companies develop strategies and implement marketing tactics, combining the best of insight + technology – from eCommerce to Paid Search to Creative to Analytics to Relationship Marketing. With all the tools in a marketer’s toolbox, we strive to be a CMO’s most trusted partner. Our industry expertise includes Retail & Consumer Products; Healthcare; Financial Services; Communications, Media & Technology, and B2B.

This is why you should call me (type of challenge or project)…
We’re best when we bring to together marketing disciplines and industry acumen to provide measurable integrated solutions. We shine we get the opportunity to demonstrate business results across tactics – like integrating eCommerce with paid search/SEO, driving the best creative with analytics and measurement, or infusing CRM with Personality Segmentatio
n.

This is when you should call someone else…
Traditional media outlets are outside of our sweet spot (TV, print, radio), along with traditional PR. Our social media practice is focused on infusing social into all of our marketing disciplines, but we are partnering with world-class agencies like SHIFT on outreach programs and Powered on designing the best approaches to engage and activate communities.

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This is my company…

Powered is a dedicated social media agency that helps brands fully capitalize on their social initiatives. With 75 employees in four offices (Austin, New York City, Portland and San Francisco) we brings “best-in-class” expertise across the social spectrum to our clients by offering a combination of strategy, planning, activation and management for social presence and programs.

What we do…
Okay, I guess I answered this in the “this is my company” section but to add on, we help big brands with strategy and activation (getting their key stakeholders like customers, prospects, partners or employees) to do things that create value for their brand. Those activities might include evangelizing, contributing, participating or learning.

This is why you should call me (type of challenge or project)…
We’re really at our best when we’re helping big brands (mainly B2C) connect their social efforts to their marketing efforts. We start by fleshing out a cohesive strategy and then move toward the activation. In many cases, this includes focusing on things like influencer outreach, ambassador programs, Facebook Fanpages, applications and customer tabs and the building and managing of branded online communities.

This is when you should call someone else…
We’re still not particularly good at media buying, custom web development (outside of Facebook and community building), SEM and general site SEO. We also don’t do any traditional PR. For those activities, I’d strongly recommend talking to our friends at Rosetta and SHIFT, both of whom we partner/work with.

How did we do? Feedback here or on any of our posts is welcome.