eLink Media & Social Media...

Recently, Heidi Browning left MySpace to return to the agency world at Universal McCann. In a recent interview about the subject she was asked and answered the following interaction:

"What did you learn at MySpace that has equipped you for this role?"

Ms. Browning: A lot, like the notion of how, when and why to think about social in campaigns and what it actually takes to deliver on that, because, as we know, a lot of people think about social media on a campaign-by-campaign basis and it's really much bigger than that. It's infused into your entire business: how you communicate with customers, how you influence your product, how you market and how you do promotions. There's so many different aspects that touch your business that are social and so taking that experience and knowledge and knowing what works and doesn't work and being able to apply that to Universal McCann's clients is going to be enormously useful.

Well that's great if the objective is brand extension or brand awareness. The concern coming from a practicality standpoint is "where in that statement does the terms results, focus, or ROI appear?" Social media may be the next new frontier, but until someone can demonstrate how an advertiser can truly monetize the traffic, this remains a shot in the dark.