Lynne D Johnson from FastCompany on What Comes Next

I enjoyed it. Would love to hear more from her. Wish I could be at SXSW!

I can see what she's trying to say. But since the start, the conversations have been taking place on the customer's turf. I think looking at where the conversations originally started coming from, it will be a hard job for companies to encroach on the customer's turf, or that which the customer has made, for their own purposes.

For a long time I thought what the idea was not to try and control or "bring in" those conversations, but more to start and recognize conversations being "all over the place" as an opportunity. (Still haven't read Groundswell actually) But I'm open to the possibility that I'm flat wrong.

@Malcolm Bastien - Maybe I wasn't clear, but I'm not talking about brands controlling the conversation. It's too late for that...the groundswell, the tribe, or whatever else you want to call it, has already taken over. It's that brands are trying to be too many things to too many people, so they have to stay true to their audiences and be in those places where their audiences are -- but also, keep in mind that it's necessary to curate and cultivate community and relationship building at home. You can end up diluting the brand if you can't figure out how to bring the tools that are out there, in some way back home.

So, not talking to your audience, but having conversations with. In the terms of a media brand, if all comments related to your content are happening on Digg, Twitter, and Facebook, well then you better figure out a way to foster those same kinds of conversations at home. Curate those voices that are out there, help them become contributors, evangelists, and the like.

Hopefully I've clarified what I've said in the video some.

I'm not clear still on what "bring the conversation back home" actually means.

Lynne's comment is optimistic, but faces significant challenges.

First, the conversational horse left the brand owners barn some time ago, never to return. Repeat, Elvis has left the building!

Rather than trying to bring the conversation back to the brand, I think smart brand owners will view all these new tools and communities as brand extension mechanisms that let them reach into specific segments more effectively than they have ever been able to (if done right).

I hear a lot of brands talk about social and viral, and a lot of buzz about "two-way" communication. That is just the start. I think the next trend is to understand and embrace how this phenomenon "pre-segments" total available markets - so they can execute on being a more relevant and valued part of the conversation within those segments.

That doesn't mean social will replace direct content delivery, and branding efforts. Not by a long way. But it will and should change they way they think about their customer base, and act accordingly. It's wonderfully additive, and its all good :=)

@divineconomy - Of course it would depend which type of business you were in. If you were a product, you would bring the conversation back home by considering some of what you hear out in the field in your next product. If you're a media brand, it means using what you hear out there in future content planning, but also cultivating relationships with your community that may be on Twitter, or Facebook, or wherever. How do you cultivate that relationship, in the case of FC, since we have content and community, it means enlisting some of those voices as experts on our own site: as community moderators, as expert bloggers, as stories to write about.

In the plainest since, it may also mean things as simple as threading twitter and facebook comments on our content within our very own comments.

Does this clarify?

@Blair Zykan -- Great point. Much of what I meant, but maybe didn't say.

much clarified, thank you!

Hi Chris: thanks for this interview. It's an interesting question: "who 'owns' the brand?"
I too understand what Lynne is trying to say. I think she is saying that the Brand owns the brand "name" and "owns the responsibility" to create those positive experiences (trust, product & service quality) that give a brand its positive image. When defining 'brand ownership' in these terms, I see where Lynne is coming from.

At the end of the day though, what the brand stands for (brand image) will be positive or negative depending on how consumers experience it. If consumers have a positive experience, they will correlate the Product with something good, which will determine what the Brand stands for.

From this perspective, the mantra that I've been hearing for so long from the marketing and social media communities makes sense: customers own the brand, they are the ones who determine really what the brand is or isn't. A company who makes Pintos can do somersaults trying to "brand" it as a Ferrari, but at the end of the day, if expectations are not met, the car will still be a Pinto. Right?
Regarding "where" conversations are taking place: I think they'll continue to take place all over, but agree that companies will work hard to bring those conversations back "home". So long as companies remain transparent and authentic, I think they can be successful (i.e. Dell IdeaStorm and MyStarbucksIdea continue to be good examples).

I look forward to seeing how other companies like Fast Company can find creative ways to grow their communities in the coming year.
Thanks again, Chris!

Lynne,

Great points in your video... and I felt you were very clear in your description. Brands need to continue the conversation when others are talking outside of their base... and continue to try to foster those conversations back to their "hub" so they are directing to the topic at hand... their brand.

Thanks, and sorry I didn't get to meet up when I was at SxSW.

Lewis

Okay...

I'm going to come off as being a bit of a b**t, but, all this new vocabulary and constant effort to define what is already defined drives me nuts. It's the the dot com era all over again, with a bunch of people mistaking new media channels as somehow revolutionary. They are revolutionary in terms of how people communicate, but not in terms of what people say.

Here is what is true:

1) Brands exist in the customer's head, not in the company's boardroom.
2) Listen to your customers and prospects and communicate with them; they just might say something useful.
3) Don't lie. You will be found out.

I think point 2 is where people are confused. All this new web stuff? It's simply a new way to listen and communicate. What's the best way? No one knows and if they say they do know, well, they're either lying or deluding themselves.

Jeff
www.cerebellumblues.com

You have to know, by the way, that I gave Lynne no prep. I turned on the camera and fired off a question without giving her time to answer.

Harder than you think, so I give her extra credit for that.

Chris,

I think Lynne did an awesome job, and it didn't seem like she was off the cuff by any means. Bravo for an awesome answer!

Agreed on that one. Its easy for all of us to reflect and put thoughts to the keyboard.

Lynne, I appreciate the willingness to put yourself out there and start a good conversation on what I think is a really interesting question facing brands and social networks.

Yes, thank you Lynne! ; ) I really appreciate the ideas you shared and the thoughts you sparked. I agree this was a hard question to answer on the spot, I don't think I would have fared as well ; ) Thank you very much again.

I hope you're right Lynne because the longer the brands wait -- especially the larger, established ones -- the more their ability to be allowed to join the conversation will erode. Time really is not on their side.

While companies do indeed "own" the actual brand as a product, the public will decide whether the brand has any equity or import. As almost all of the traditional content companies have shown in their reaction to how digital has transferred control of the market to consumers, large companies/brands have an extremely difficult time changing their way of thinking and allowing for others (i.e. the consumers) to take control. They usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming toward the future. All the while damaging their place in the consumption market and market of ideas.

This is brain stretching stuff! I think if the brands are going to learn how to bring conversations back home - and I strongly agree with Lynne this is what they must do - they are going to have to first split their marketing and communications stragegy up in to outbound and inbound and then make sure that it all hangs together.

To take a very simple example, a brand could send out a video, assuming they get it right - think Cadbury's Gorilla or Doritos Crystal ball - this will start a lot of conversations.

They then need to listen out for these conversations and connect in an open way with the people who are having them. For a video this might include joining in with a hashtag discussion on twitter and answering questions about who came up the idea, what's next etc. This all needs to be done in such a way that it reinforces brand values - and many of the conversations started in this way will have the brand in question as their focus point.

This is a very basic take on how I think a brand could start to engage with its' customers - I am sure that many sophisticated techniques will develop over the coming years enabling brand owners to connect in a meaningful way and en mass with their audiences. But it will only work if they are open, helpful, learn to reply quickly and have humans at the other end of the interface - this will be a painful change for a lot of brand owners to make.

Hang onto your hats - it's going to be an exciting journey and we are only just scratching the surface at the moment. Like Malcolm I'm also open to the idea that I'm totally off track here, but thanks to Lynne and Chris for once again starting an interesting discussion.

It's sort of like making the narrative personal...

I'm right there with Lynne! What powerful, amazing tools companies and organizations have at their disposal to bring their audience closer, become more intimate and really engage them in a way we all have with each other on all different topics. Now it's time for them to join the conversations. Thank for sharing - Chris & Lynne.
Ken Persel

This is beginning to feel like presence engineering to me. Taking hold of what your brand owns and carefully engineering where that presence exists, what it means to audiences, and how it can be shaped and shifted as a nimble, evolving organism. Great, short vid, Chris and Lynne. I look forward to more.

Thanks Chris & Lynne. Sounds like interactive marketing campaigns need to be developed.

Thanks Lynne for the clarification. You're extrapolation on what “bring the conversation back home” was also helpful in understanding your message.

Maybe a loose paraphrase of the general message (which for precision's sake I'm just going to say is "close enough") is that with all the dispersed commenting and activity going on around a brand, it's going to be important for brands to develop both goals, and the flexibility (skill, insight, adaptability) so that they can take advantage of everything that's going on like you've given examples of (strong community voices) and be able to tie it back in to the goals.

I leave out the idea of "bringing it home" in that statement because it seems appropriate that "bringing it home" and doing something integrating foreign comments or tweet backs onto your own site seems more appropriate as something a brand might want to do to, and not necessarily something every company *should* do. Funnily enough this is the 2nd time this week I'm excited about trying out a product coming out soon called UberVU which gives conversation monitors that power.

Thanks for sharing Lynne and Chris. I think Lynne's point is spot-on!

At Brains On Fire we've been fortunate to see a brand bring it home. Getting to witness online chats between crafting tool engineers (men) and crafters (women) was and continues to be a brand changing experience for Fiskars.

Chris you've said it before "the first one there owns the game." Three years ago it was fairly easy to start a new party of conversations. But now parties of conversations are everywhere and a brand really has to ask itself "can I really bring something new to the table?"

Some brands are now asking for a community to be born, crawl, and walk in a traditional-media time frame. This thinking really doesn't help our cause, trying to get customers, fans to start to trust a conversation with the brand.
All that said, I think brands do have to make sure they "get some credit" for the conversation if they go down the social media path. Just slow down.

She is spot freakin on. You can almost see it in her eyes how much of a TIMESUCK she probably believes chasing down all these "conversations" can become. You have nothing if you can't herd those cats. But herding cats is damn tough work.

To the question 'What comes next?': From the perspective of online communities, here is my take on the next evolution:
1. Content will remain king. The strength of the community will depend on the content it provides and the ability to have great conversations.
2. Roles will evolve - it is no longer enough to be a social media specialist. There are plenty of those in the market. The question will be what rle does a person play - community manager?. marketing? technology specialist? etc etc
3. Possibly better integration with 'traditional marketing'. i.e. where would the social media startegy fit into the overall marketing strategy. And more importantly, what is the ROI from it?