we were a little arrogant about social media... once

Let's jump in the tardis and punch the destination buttons for, say, 2006, shall we?

Let's navigate through the mists of that year to one of the first few meetings in which we ever talked with clients about social media.

Now let's get in close... no, closer... okay, now take a good hard look at our faces during that discussion. What would you call that look on our faces, in one word?

Smug.

Yes, it was yet another moment where the agency weasels were oh so way ahead of the curve, bringing our backward clients into the new millennium.

Now, let's zoom in further and look at the Powerpoint deck we're showing off. What's that logo on the first page? It's a funny looking word... MySpace?

Yeah, considering we had no idea how social media were going to evolve, we were pretty arrogant. (How much time did you spend pushing kooky Facebook apps in 2007? Yeah, me too.) We were asking clients to spend money with no sense of what they were actually going to get out of it. And clients for a long time have put up with the idea that our vague references to "awareness" and "engagement" were good enough to open up their wallets.

Now, let's rev up that tardis again and return to 2010. Let's zoom in to a meeting room and take a good look at the faces of the agency weasels doing a social media presentation. How would you sum up the look on their face?

Fear.

Clients are demanding to know how their investment in social media is actually going to pay off. And getting flustered and continuing to say "um, engagement" while we turn red and start sweating is no longer enough to keep them at bay.

Agencies actually have to be able to predict what the ROI on a social media spend is going to be, in much the way that they have to make a business case for their direct response or promotions campaigns. It's a huge challenge, and not many people seem to be sharing details about what works and what doesn't.

Four years after our initial arrogance, clients are now the ones herding us into the new millennium, sometimes peaceably, sometimes not. But they're undeniably in charge. And if your agency doesn't come up with real business reasons for your clients to be doing social media marketing, the Daleks are sure to be just around the corner.