Do clients need social media shops?

In the past couple of years, the take-up of social media as an effective advertising tool has been steadily increasing. Joe Leon, the associate partner at Essence, a digital agency and social media specialist, says what most people don't realize is that their social media footprint is much, much bigger than they think and defining and managing it is much more than just putting up a Facebook page. Another area where the specialist agencies feel they have the upper hand on their traditional brethren is in ROI. Steve Richards, the managing director of Yomego, says he doesn't think the bigger agencies know how to quantify and measure the effectiveness of social media -- they can try to bluff their way through it, but it's not convincing.