Really interesting and from personal experience you could actually give them different labels – community engagement and online PR.

We have two clients that have the divide you mention. For the first social media management is handled by marketing while online PR is handled by….PR.

I think that’s not unusual as a lot of traditional PR always included content development – by-lined articles in trade magazines, speaker opportunities, videos, white papers and so on.

And of course the idea in the PR world was always to get some willing journalists to lavish your client’s conference speech or white paper with praise…and so it is in the world you are talking about now, though its no longer just about journalists.

I think that divide and way of thinking is increasingly common, with communities increasingly being handled by marketing departments and by extension very often advertising and media agencies.

But I do agree they should work together rather than for the divide to be this absolute. Another client also has a communities and a content function but groups them both under social media with one reporting structure.

‘Content’ produces editorial that is then given to communities to adapt – that’s obviously not one way communication, but the client’s communities’ are given the opportunity to build on and enhance that content.

That to me seems a logical way of looking at things. Unfortunately as yet, few brands do

But what about the Burberry model, where professional and remarkable content is push out by a central team?

I made the distinction because you see the phrase content marketing crop up more and more. And its important to explain why this term is used and not social media. To stand out in social you need to excel in content.