Adam Noakes: everyone wants to be an online agency, except for this one

Everyone wants to be an online marketing agency, except this online marketing agency.

I recently read a great post by a local marketing agency, talking about the fact they'd settled on calling themselves a 'marketing agency'.

They pose an interesting conundrum, but not one that would trouble an 'online marketing agency', right? I mean, everyone and their mother wants to call themselves a digital or online agency. PR, Events, Marketing, Design... they all attempt to shoehorn a "digital" aspect into their businesses.

Sometimes, I want to rip the "digital" label off and shove it right up the backsides of the buzz creators that float around the industry – or at least those that mainly float around Twitter.

I love online marketing, but it is the 'marketing' aspect that unites every agency bod worth their crust. It isn't managing a Twitter account for a press team within a corporation, or running 'Like us to win' competitions for a brand. Which, granted, is all part and parcel of some of the work that a digital marketing agency will be expected to undertake.

I sigh when i see good PR agencies making lots of noise about becoming "a digital PR agency" - what the fuck is that? So you're a PR agency that uses digital channels? OK, i get that, but surely you're still a PR agency? (... although the lines of PR are so blurred now, that's another subject for another day.)

I wince when I see companies that create a beautiful design and then bolt on a section about online marketing to their website, like an aftermarket spoiler on an otherwise slick French hatchback.

But, I can't really blame the agencies. The decision-makers see the chaotic circus of digital hysteria unfolding around them - clients talking about Twitter and Facebook in every meeting, and staff spending most their day on Twitter and Tumblr. I get it. I really do.

Here's the thing, we offer two things to our clients: Optimising a website so more people find it and then do stuff when they're on it, and create marketing pieces that are executed via social networks. Our agency strapline reads "a social and search agency", which is shortened from "a social media and search marketing agency". The truth is that we just help companies market their stuff by coming up with creative ideas. It just so happens that we choose to only execute this online, across Google, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

I think the wider point is one of an identity crisis within the broader marketing industry, driven by client insecurities, trending topics and Klout scores. Labels need to be thrown away, skill sets need to be re-analysed, and the word 'viral' needs to be banished from every agency service list for the rest of time. Some clients are turning around to the fact that it is the individuals, the track record and the ideas that form the basis of a strong agency offering, and not the wording 'Social Media' on an agency's list of services.

Someone recently said to me that I should probably work in advertising, such are my notions of marketing grander and ideals to 'make a difference' with the work we put out as a "social and search agency". I disagree. If it so happens that a campaign we conceptualise for online execution is transportable across other mediums, then great. Although not the primary focus of an 'online'-focussed agency, 'traditional' media still carry much importance to the validity of campaign themes and ideas. Even to the point that when I'm unveiling strategy themes to clients, I reference television advertising. Why? Because it is still carries significant weight as the flagship of all marketing practices. There it is, I said it.

Social Media is a name given to a group of online platforms, and the user activity on them. What we do is market things for companies, using these platforms to execute the marketing.

I'm Adam, Director of Strategy at a Search and Social agency.
I'm Adam, Director of Strategy at an Online Marketing agency.
I'm Adam, Director of Strategy at a Marketing Agency.
I'm Adam, Director of Strategy at 140 Digital.
I'm Adam, I come up with creative marketing ideas for companies to sell more products.

Adam Noakes is Director of Strategy at 140 Digital, and is @digitaladam on Twitter.