Nielsen & McKinsey: Another Social Shift?

The awareness  of “social media” has created an explosive growth in providers offering people and businesses an array of services. At the same time the growth in firms looking to hire “social media managers and strategist” as increased 400% in less than two years.

The current perceived value of these services and positions are low. The average pay scale for a new “social media hire” is $80,000 or less. The average pricing on outside services are low because most sell task oriented products and services, rather than strategic and knowledge based services. The value of the markets offering has diluted the “real value” and propagated a serious lack of understanding, knowledge.

The demand for using and understanding social media will continue however the value of understanding how, what, when, where, who and why just went to a new level.

The High End Knowledge Providers Just Jumped Into the Game

Nielsen and McKinsey form Joint Venture to Help Companies Use Social Media Intelligence for Superior Business Performance

The Nielsen Company (Nielsen) and McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) announced a global joint venture, NM Incite, created to help leading companies harness the power of social media intelligence to drive superior business performance.  NM Incite gives companies the capabilities to better understand, value and take advantage of the rich insights made possible by social media.

The important statements within the recent press release are:

1. “Our venture with McKinsey will extend our ability to help clients answer one of the central questions facing CEO’s, how to unleash the promise of social media,” said David Calhoun, CEO of Nielsen.
   
2. “Our clients want to take full advantage of what is possible. NM Incite will fuse social media with the enterprise, creating new opportunities, efficiencies and competitive advantage.”
3. “As our clients’ needs evolve, so our firm continuously innovates in the way we work,” said Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director of McKinsey.
   
4. “Social media is an increasingly critical issue for business leaders and an area of untapped opportunity for many of our clients.”
   
5. This joint venture will equip institutions with real-time insights to help their leaders drive better results.”
6. “Senior executives of global companies instinctively recognize the possibilities of incorporating social media insight and capability into their organizations.  They simply need help to make it a reality.”

Business leaders, the real ones, understand the value of acquiring and applying new knowledge. The value of new knowledge is relevant to providing strategic advantages to an organizations market position. Real leaders pay premium prices for gaining knowledge that enables them to gain stronger market positions. Note the emphasis of value in the above quotes from the press release.

McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm dedicated to helping the world’s leading organizations address their strategic challenges. The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications.

What do you get when you put the core competencies of McKinsey and Nielsen together? A combined knowledge inventory that elevates new knowledge based on strategic insights into the use of information and media, social media.

The McKinsey/Nielsen partnership is a game changer in many ways. It will elevate the conversations and raise the bar of expectations for sound strategic advice based on knowledge from all the existing suppliers. It will also produce more innovation from what McKinsey/Nielsen discover and create with their clients.  Innovation is priceless!

The social game just shifted to higher expectations for value based on strategy and not task.

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