Are Social Media Agencies Being Anti-Social When They Fail To Respond?

Yesterday, I took an interest in a series of Tweets from Rebecca Jablonsky, an artist, dancer and writer (with a Masters in Psychology) who is presently seeking work with some of the premier social media agencies in the New York City area.

The thing that grabbed me right away is how public the hiring process is now. We talk about transparency all the time, and how a brand can’t hide behind poor customer service, etc., but even companies dedicated to these high ideals can be dealt a blow in social channels because that’s where people gather to talk and sometimes listen.

One person who listened was A.J. Vaynerchuk, Gary V’s brother and co-founder of Vayner Media. He contacted me when he saw on Twitter that AdPulp was interested in this story, and he contacted Jablonsky to hear her side of the story and to apologize for any misunderstanding.

Jablonsky has since written the episode up on her blog, which provides a fuller picture of what went down. The short story is Jablonsky used a targeted Facebook advertising campaign to get Carrot Creative’s attention. But they did not pay attention, which led her to update the Facebook ads, one of which said, “I have an interview at VaynerMedia tomorrow. Why don’t I have an interview with you?”

According to Jablonsky, someone at Carrot made someone at Vayner Media aware of the Facebook ad and that someone then cancelled Jablonsky’s interview. Which is what led to her Tweets, my interest in the story, A.J. Vaynerchuk’s interest and Jablonsky’s blog post.

I’m interested in this story for several reasons. As I noted above, the hiring process can be extremely public now. Which means that HR departments, and everyone on staff, has to understand that everything they do goes in to creating the brand experience. If someone’s curt on the phone, it’s a ding on the brand. If someone fails to reply to a job applicant, it’s a ding on the brand’s reputation. And so on, which makes building and maintaining modern brands a tricky job, to put it mildly.

I’m also interested in helping people find meaningful work and work they’re deeply interested in doing. Those of us on the inside know what a insular world the agency business can be — after all these years I still feel shut out by it, some days more so than others. Anyway, it’s hard to learn how to properly convey one’s value to an agency, especially at the beginning of one’s career where actual experience is thin and ambition high.

I left a comment on Jablonsky’s blog that spells out what I think about the Facebook campaign she created, and how she needs to do more to gain traction with Carrot Creative, Vayner Media or other top players. She replied and said she still thinks a response from Carrot is necessary. I replied that no response, sadly, is a response.