Ryan Anderson dot ca

The question of who “owns” social media has been raised a number of times, by a number of very smart people.  Mitch Joel of TwistImage believes that it’s the digital agency who needs to educate themselves and take ownership of the social media landscape.  Jeremy Pepper – one of the most intelligent voices in the PR community, believes that PR will lose social media to the advertising world for the simple fact that agencies know how to sex things up and charge for it.  Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester lays out the organizational difficulties of social media being stuck in a single silo, and argues that who owns the program depends on the organization and the nature of the program.

This is a question I’ve been thinking about a lot lately since I’ve left the agency world to go off on my own, but the more I think about how the media landscape will look in the next 5 – 10 years, the more I think we’re asking the wrong question.

As it stands, social media programs are attempted by agencies, PR firms, contractors, and the odd social media firm.  Some big agencies on all sides of the fence have tried to build up expertise in the area, but for the most part they have been unable to move the needle or get through the levels of bureaucracy at the top of the food chain necessary to really establish social media as a viable offering within the organization.

Perhaps I’m drinking the social media Kool-aid a little too much here, but I think the real question we should be asking – if not now, then soon – is “who does social media own?”

Right now, the answer is “no one.”  In terms of marketing budgets, social media only represents a small fraction of budgets, but when you boil it down to the core strategies of openness, transparency, engagement and consumer participation, it’s the key linchpin that links all other disciplines to the strategy.  When you consider the integration of social ads, online video, event and PR activation, and the creative that goes along with it, social media needs to be the leader, or you’re left with a situation where the tactics are leading the strategy instead of the other way around.

At the end of the day, this is about strategy leading the game and pushing creative into a supporting role.  As much as marketers like to think that social media was created by us, or that we somehow have ownership of it, the reality is that it’s merely and enabling social change, and not simply a communications vehicle.  As consumers continue to change their actions and expectations based on the technology that is available, and that will be created down the road by the next Facebook, the next Twitter or the next iPhone, the importance of making strategies social will be all the more important.

Over time, social media won’t be clamoring for a spot at the table with television and interactive – it will be deciding the involvement of all the players – assuming they fit the strategy, that is.