Many brands have reported lacking the resources in house to handle social media with more reliance on external agency expertise to drive awareness and engagement around their products.

Social media insecurity
The Public Relations and Communications Association’s (PRCA) sixth annual Digital PR and Communications Report found that the most cited responses for brands not using social media were lack of staff (49%) and lack of time (45%), closely followed by lack of budget (30%). Fear of attack from campaigners continues to be a reason why 12% of companies are not using social media more often. Only 12% of respondents say they now have a dedicated social media team, down from 28% in 2014.

Brands boycotting social media?
This does not necessarily mean however that brands are boycotting social media. The report shows a 12% rise in ownership of digital social media activities by PR teams in 2018, with 57% of respondents saying most of their digital and social content is produced by a PR and communications agency.

Brand requirements from social media activity
Clients’ biggest expectation from their agencies when it comes to social media activity is to manage blogger and influencer outreach and engagement. And this is something that any agency worth their salt will do well: armed with a network of key contacts, a sound knowledge of the product and – most importantly – the ability to navigate a partnership between brand and influencer that’s mutually beneficial.
A professional PR agency has the expertise to carefully manage the partnership between influencer and brand in order to foster relationships and deliver results. It’s something we do exceptionally well here at Clareville – checkout our work with parenting influencers for our client BabyBjorn.

Less influencer – more influence
The influencer sector is fast growing, none more so than in the parenting sector (the 3rd fastest growing according to a PR Week report). This is a world when there are a myriad influencers – and micro-influencers – to discover and evaluate.
A huge task of course, but the watchword here is relevancy. As the PRCA speakers commented at the launch of their digital report: ‘it’s less about the influencer, and more about the influence.’