I’m running the New Marketing Summit for the second day today, and I’m surrounded by a very intelligent group of professional marketers who have come to discern how these newer tools will drive more business for them. When I listen to the more skeptical and cynical in the crowd, I realize that we (and by we, I mean the new media, the bloggers and podcasters types) have to build our interfaces a lot better. For those of us who want to help businesses grow, it’s up to us to understand how to better deliver value back to what marketing needs most: things like lead generation and search value, things like list building and market segmentation.
No matter how many of our fluffy toys make business more human, there are still real, solid goals that need to be met before marketing teams of the world embrace these tools as part of their set.
So today, while I’m at the conference working with the hot exchange of information, I wanted to give YOU my blog ,and have you write your thoughts and ideas on how what we’re doing helps the process.
What value are we giving to the larger communications world? Not even marketing, but how are we helping MEANINGFUL communication evolve?
That’s my question for you. Your job is to make the comments section way better than the post section.
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Hi Chris
I’ve realised the importance of using communities for building communities: using your blog as a platform for authentic messages and stories that your community wants to spread to their own communities, as opposed to spreading for the sake of spreading.
I feel like I just got lost in my own words there (which means I have not made the comments any better than the post!), but what I am trying to say is that we should be focused on building things that people want to share, as opposed to people sharing something just because it is possible to share it.
And you chose to do this on blog action day 2008, when we are trying to find out whether our talking to ourselves can help point attention to poverty? Again, you give an amazing invitation for reflection. If this kind of day shifts real attention and real dollars to a real problem, then we are demonstrating that good will works.
By being a participatory audience, voting with our eyeballs, comments, subscriptions, etc. we’re doing an incredibly meaningful thing - we’re filtering. Good communications (and good communicators/sharers) will rise to the top. Those of little value won’t. So it’s not just the content producers who are making it better - it’s the audience. We’re all in the dance…
Hi, Chris!
Thanks for this opportunity!
One of the things I tell my clients when I’m discussing new media marketing with them is how much blogging, newsletters, podcasts and so on will add to the human value of what they’re doing (it seems an oxymoron, when you think about it!). Using these tools, we get to put a name and a face and a personality to a business that would otherwise fade into anonymity and thus obscurity. And in these days of the big box store (sacrificing human contact on the altar of convenience and/or low price), that can make the difference between a company’s success or failure.
They still want to know about conversions. One of the things that still presents a challenge is tracking blog readers, for example, from first contact to RFI to conversion. Once they fill out an RFI it’s much easier, but getting good statistics on what got them there in the first place is still something of an obstacle.
*I* want to know what works, so that we can spend their marketing dollars effectively.
We have found that tricks such as online-printable coupons help bring people in the door (literally or figuratively), but that doesn’t apply to every business, of course. And not every company can afford the big-ticket leadGen providers such as Eloqua (as fabulous as it is!). And of course we try to track movement using analytics. It mostly works, but is not as accurate as we might like.
The little guys (or at least the littlER guys) need to know how effective their campaigns are just as much as, if not more than, the big guys. There’s not much room for trial and error in smaller businesses!
Further, when one has a client who is a self-proclaimed troglodyte, we want to present tools that will be friendly, usable and with a short learning curve. We want to make this easier on them, not harder!
So, yes, I’ll be watching with interest. Thanks for the post, and thanks for the updates.
Cheers,
Rebekkah Hilgraves
President, SheTech and Company
.the power of communication.
Great idea Chris…and great valid points here about the ‘lack of’ uptake of Social Media Marketing across ’smart’ organisations. I came from a corporate strategy background, and having worked with some pretty smart marketers myself, I believe social media and social networking needs to start with the basics, like you suggested; customer attraction, retention and expansion. In other words how do we get new customers, how do we keep our existing customers, and how do we sell more product to these retained customers? I am not convinced that SMM tools and strategies are focused on these three fundamentals. Alongside this, I like the Forrester (Josh Bernoff) Model that explains a great model for the application of a social media strategy. Listening - Talking - Involving - Supporting - Engaging. I believe if you put some rigour around these 5 steps, and have a plan that delivers more customers, improved retention and greater cross sell, then business leaders will be convinced of the benefits of SMM pretty quickly. In short, I do not believe that SMM is the problem, I believe that the practitioners of this art are simply not applying age old and proven business disciplines of planning, measurement and execution. You cannot manage what you cannot measure, and if a business is not measuring new customer growth, customer retention or cross sell, then they will never see the benefits from Social Media. Hope this makes some sense..tough to write good sense in a comments box! Enjoy the Summit Chris!
How are we helping MEANINGFUL communication evolve:
Long ago, in a storied time, people gave over to the machines the art of conversation. Through first BBS services then the World Wide Web we began to cast aside face to face or voice to voice conversation and put text in its’ place. We did this for the luxury of participating in pieces of conversations whenever WE wanted them - not when the other person in the conversation wanted them. This was freeing - especially to those pioneers who more thoroughly enjoyed talking without talk and interacting with another person while alone.
Then there was the great online gold rush of the ’90s. Everyone started to experience the unique joys that come with disconnected conversation. But those joys came with a price: we eliminated most of the emotion from our discourse and let our minds play tricks on us. Through email and IM (and later blogs) messages meant as positive became more neutral. Messages meant as neutral became negative in our heads. And negativity devolved (in thought and deed) into flaming. We had given our conversation over to the machines and they were changing us.
Today we are taking conversation back. We are learning how to have the best of disconnected conversations while leaving the worst behind. We are figuring out how to have connected conversations in an online space. We are striving to build a community through more than text; through voice and the way people look as they speak. We are wresting conversation back from the structures imposed by the initial limitations of the machines.
I think that we are learning that text-based conversation is but one way to communicate - and often the poorer one. The advent of video in both blogging and web site messaging is letting us bring nuance back to our conversation through the subtle ways we sound and look as we speak. Audio tools let us bring passion and excitement to our online discourse. Yes, text will remain important (as this blog post shows) but text should serve the conversation - not BE the conversation.
That is what we’re doing today to help MEANINGFUL communication evolve. We’re bringing conversation to the web.
Thanks for the opportunity, Chris!
Mike Sachleben
If in doubt about what someone - a colleague, a client, a friend is trying to achieve, ask. As Chris shows, the best advisers don’t jump in with their point of view, they ask lots of questions. Don’t make assumptions, ask. Much of the cynicism about new techniques is justified, so we need to find ways to introduce relevant newer solutions in a way that can be integrated with whichever traditional approaches are already working, and with which the cynics are comfortable.
I feel as if I should be writing an essay in order to answer that question. Indeed, I recently wrote a rather extensive paper as the major project for my final unit in my Masters (just a few weeks to go on that, thank god). As a result, my work was focused on the use of social media by visual artists and other creative industries professionals in particular.
How is meaningful communication occurring through social media for visual artists? With a field noted for the isolation inherent in many individual arts practices, social media has provided a means by which to support, connect and legitimize a practice. Just as people within the arts industry are required to connect offline in order to ‘know the right people’ and ‘be seen at the right places’, online activities can also serve to reflect, and strengthen pre-existing and newly formed connections both online and off. Oh hell… I could probably write another huge essay on this just answering that one question… but House just came on, so I’m going to go watch that instead. ;)
I got here from twitter, and after reading your blog post above, I thought that it was interesting, from a communications point of view, that your request would be visible only to the twitter community (and a bit larger probably, as you must have posted your request elsewhere). In any case, only to the digitally literate. No, not even that many, only to a small fraction of the digital community that has embraced social media… One could argue that this community counts millions already; I would argue that today it represents less than a fraction of 1% of world population!
What does this mean from a marcomm point of view? Marketing & communications teams of large corporations aim to reach large populations, or at least large segments of the market. Using social media, one may reach influential people (?), people with large (offline?) networks, etc. Still, communication would remain pretty confidential to this fraction of 1% of world population, meaning elitist and exclusive. Now that may be more than enough for a SME selling to a niche market, but is it useful to a large corporation selling to a global mass market? So the question is not: How do we use social media to communicate our message?, but the question becomes: How do we leverage social media to reach the large markets that we aim for?
What does this mean from a social point of view? Social media have reached the most remote areas of the planet these days, so the divide is not geographic (although it is political somehow, because some countries will block (censor!) certain social media websites). But there is a divide, and it is social. A sociological study would probably learn us that social media is being used by a defined segment of internet users. I don’t know that segment, but it has gender, age and wage distribution, buying habits, etc. When use social media to communicate a message, one is therefore limiting the reach of that message to the privileged (however we define that privilege). There’s been, including on this forum, a lot of talk about how we can make a social contribution to society through social media, but again these (constructive) actions remain very much within our own club. So the question is not: How do we use social media to communicate/act socially?, but the question becomes: How do we leverage social media to reach the excluded that deserve to hear/be heared?
I don’t have the answers, but I’d be interested to hear your opinions!
I work for a large american conglomerate. We use zero social media right now. Even being allowed to test the waters is “shaking things up”. ANY results or statistics of what social marketing can do, helps those of us trying to convert the skeptics make our case. I got a few from a recebt course I took with David Meerman Scott. But if the leaders in the filed could share moe B2B “case studies” to help us make our cases … that would be extraordinarily helpful.
A longing for days of paper…
Okay. I know the the issue with trees. And I am an environmentalist.
But still.
The longing for curling up under a Weeping Willow on a warm autumn day… late September in fact. Curling up on a slight incline with rustling and the sounds of nature on the lake at my feet. Curling up with a book, and treasuring every page like an afternoon sweet. Comfortable, close to the earth, content as can be… savouring the words I want to read. Curling the sentences in my mind…
As opposed to:
Staring a the screen. Listening to the hard drive churn. Staring at the screen. Hunched over trying to get comfortable. Starting at a screen. My back is starting to hurt. Staring at a screen. My wrist is sore. Staring at a screen. My eyes are itchy… STARTING AT A SCREEN. FLASH, FLASH, NEXT PAGE, NEXT SITE, MORE MORE MORE… I NEED MY DATA NIBLETS FASTER, QUICKER…
What ever happened to savouring a read in the old way?
What if you could get the writing you read here in magazine that you could take to the ballgame, take to the WC (as we say in Holland), take to the park and savour like only print can give?
Brogan and comments in print? Like The New Yorker. Or Atlantic Monthly? Or Harpers? Is it really possible?
Funny enough it is. http://www.magcloud.com/home
And I don’t work for them. I just like the idea. I think on-demand magazine printing is way-too-cool.
RGK.
We’ve got to create rockstars, which goes along with personal branding. People won’t buy that social media and social networking are the future until they see what it does to individuals. We need rockstars and leaders. I know they are out there, but we’ve got to keep pushing.
Hi Chris,
thank you for the space:)
Yes, I agree with you and with everyone else. I also think we need to re-think the approach to the tools we are using and trying to sell to our clients but there are few aspects I find crucial that all social media tools should provide:
1. Simple usability
2. Balance between meaningful exchange of information and fun
3. Transparency
4. Balance between flexibility (prompt response to new technologies and social behaviours) and keeping the highest standards of what is achieved already
5. Openness to comments and improvements
Ah, it sounds like utopia, doesn’t?:)
At the end of the day - even with those points met, we will still face the challenge of educating the client on what exactly social media is and how it works. We always need to keep it in mind.
Maybe in few years time with a larger package of great case studies companies will reach out and understand social media better. At the moment I have a feeling they are just starting to understand the importance of it, which is a good way forward but just not there yet.
Chris,
3 months ago, I was one of the cynics that you have sitting in your audience right now. I work in marketing in the B2B technology space, and I work for some of the world’s biggest IT companies.
3 months ago I would have (and did) roundly condemn blogs or web 2.0 activity as a diversion from the real hard graft of marketing.
Does the IT director of a bank (ie, my customer’s customer) get involved in online debate? All the evidence says that he/she absolutely does not. But does the IT director read those blogs, or Google “SOA” or “CRM” - bizarrely, yes he/she probably does.
However, only time will tell whether those IT Directors’ behaviour will change from “read” to “comment/get involved.”
Whilst it’s easy for me to say that my new TV’s picture isn’t what I expected on a consumer forum - it is exponentially harder (legally, morally, competitively) for the CIO of a FTSE100 company to say the CRM system they paid millions for is a dog and needs replacing after 3 months.
It’s the “Google it” phenomenon that has started to change my view - the biggest IT companies need to put interesting information and stories about themselves out there to be pulled down - they have relied on pure “push” marketing for a long time and need to wean themselves off it.
User and developer communities are forging a lot of opinion out there. But there’s no clear evidence that the most senior people are paying as much attention as the marketers would like.
So for my B2B clients targeting the most senior of decision makers “new marketing” still has a little way to go in winning a permanent place on their list of tactics. It’s still a journalistic punt for them - it’s about ensuring information is there to be found at this point, rather than encouraging what they see as a one-sided debate.
It’s my firm belief that this will change in my industry. It’s starting to change now, but it will take time.
So what’s the problem and how can we fix it? What do we need to do better to encourage people to adopt this?
Make web 2.0 less esoteric.
Make it genuinely about content, and not about backlinks and authority land-grabbing.
Only create stuff that will add value to the community.
Provide tools and downloads that people can use in their daily lives (I love Verne Harnish’s blog and site gazelles.net for this) and trust that if your stuff is genuinely good it will get out there. This is especially useful for those who can’t or won’t contribute, but will pull content.
Understand that everyone in the IT community wants constant improvement and ensure that what works gets circulated.
Hit “best practice” over the head with a big stick and replace it with constant innovation.
Appreciate that in B2B it’s not straightforward - and that to get it right will tie up some of your best resource.
In summary, to me it’s about intention - if you want to help your customers and prospects do their jobs better, get into it. If you’re a great service organisation, get into it. If you’re enthusiastic about the future of the market you’re in - get into it.
Fair enough that people want measurable results when working with Social Media but compared to heritage media it’s a treasure trove of actual data.
I’ve been working in the production end of TVC’s for years and it is clear to me that most (not all) creatives in most (not all) large agencies care only about winning awards to raise their salaries - where’s the accountability there?
I look at SMM and having come from small business see a fantastic opportunity for those without the cash to fund half baked ad campaigns to create a real connection and be heard. Perhaps it is utopian but I see SMM pushing advertising and marketing into a more honest relationship with people (I hate the word ‘consumer’). Forcing a focus on what is the REAL value you offer because the feedback will be swift and clear if you are serving up BS.
By providing a bit of in-company training, corporates not used to working with social media can get started.
First and foremost, we need to convince people that bloggging is about starting and engaging in conversations - meaningful ones.
Not everyone has the confidence to engage like the marketing / communications folks already running with the batton.
A bit of good old-fashioned hands on teaching and support will get corporates up and running. With confidence that they can express themselves they will start to write and hopefully find an audience.
Thanks, Chris -
We actually are what we change and improve. Marketing and Conversations are one and the same - with politics being a poor cousin.
We are the meaningful change.
When you look around at the world, you see something which is speeding up immensely. Now we have the capability to affect things through small actions. And ignore, shun those things which are unimportant - and so, contribute change to those as well.
Social Media is heavy on “social”. Any society is composed of it’s individual parts. As each of us seeks meaningful change in our own lives - and contributes this forward - we then become larger than ourselves and the meaningful change we want builds momentum.
So: Thanks in advance to all those who’ve helped; and Congratulations to everyone who have made it! There’s more great days ahead!!!
It doesn’t matter how many SMM tools you have in your bag of tricks. It has never been,it is not now, nor will it ever be about “you” or “me” or our “tools”…it’s about “them”.Put out their fires with your “passion”, heal them where they hurt with your “voice” and the world will beat a path to your door.Period.End of sentence. The rest will take care of itself.
There are so many messages being sent and received constantly. People want to be a part of the message that resonates with them the most. For the message crafters it has to be about creating authenticity with our voices so that the people who receive our messages connect with us and get the feeling of bumping into an old friend.
i’ve been noticing a TON of blog posts lately discussing how PR folks can demonstrate value/ROI. certainly a sign of the current economic times.
it seems to me that the best way to “legitimize” SM and make our conversations more meaningful is to relate our efforts to bottom-line BUSINESS goals. goes back to the outputs vs. outcomes argument. outputs are great and certainly there is value in them, but the real change comes from the outcomes that happen BECAUSE of those outputs.
the more we focus on helping the business, the more meaningful our work will become in terms of demonstrating hard value that marketing types love.
I’ve been struck by how the examples shown throughout the Summit, and the analogy to our location at Patriots stadium applies here, remind me of Super Bowl commercials…What works is great stuff. We all need to learn how to write the 140 character super bowl spot tweet…
The move: from learning to use the tools, to using the tools well…
The argument I like is from the book, The Open Brand by Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins. I can’t make a better argument than them. I recommend the critics of social media read this book.
Here’s what other important people have to say about it.
Guy Kawasaki:
“First open this book. Then open your mind. Then open your brand because its the only way to succeed in the web-made world.”
Gary Briggs:
“The Open Brand prepares marketers for the social web-empowered consumer and charts the course for opening your brand.”
Seth Godin:
“If you’re serious, really serious, about thriving in the world we live in. This is a little book containing a very big idea.”
Tim Armstrong:
“How many of our assets does a consumre want to access in today’s web-made world? All of them. Right now. It’s time to open your brand.”
Susan Gillette:
“The Open Brand is both timely and extremely well done. It’s the best synthesis I’ve read of the reasons why marketers need to ‘open’ their brands coupled with savvy advice about how they can begin to embrace the reality that marketing and branding are now interactive sports.”
Check out their web site, here:
http://theopenbrand.resource.com/
I’m kicking myself in the butt (ouch!) for not getting my butt to this conference. Think of two industries that would be the most resistant to using new media and I write in and around both of them. In one, the push-back question is: how will any of this stuff generate revenue? In the other, the push-back question is: how will any of this stuff build faith.
Apps for this media emerge so quickly that had I been writing my book, The Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today only three months later, I would’ve had an entire chapter on using Twitter!
What you’re attempting to do…and what you’re doing…is great!
Thank you, Chris for a genuinely thoughtful question.
Here’s a fact. I’m a certified techno-idiot. By necessity, I keep my approach simple when using the wonderful array of social media tools. What can it help me do? What can it help me do for other people. As a creative with no real business being in business it’s about discovering the intention, my own or a clients. Of course, we’re people so even that is often a gnarly process.
As someone wise once said, know what you want to do and you can do what you want (okay, not stuff like defying gravity). Social media is simply another tool that we can use to articulate and act on intention. Just as creative thinking allows us to use the stuff we know in new ways, the tools of Web 2.0 do the same.
I can add (barely) but I’m no mathematician. Without a deep understanding of the technology that drives Web 2.0, I can only talk with people about what they want to do and how social media can help them do it. (Yeah, this sounds suspiciously like a celebration of stupid). Leaving the metrics to those who have mathematical ability, I focus more on the immeasurable value of quality content and authenticity. It’s important to show people what they can do by actually doing it yourself. Then they realize that if a techno-idiot can do this, they can too.
Chris thanks for the platform to share views, great idea. …-Tom
from Kodak here.
It is simple for us. Markets are about conversations and we are engaging in those with our customers to share our POV. Our perspectives have been welcomed. We do feel we are adding to the value of those conversations because we are not just laying marketing babble out there from people “representing” Kodak. Our comments, posts, pictures, videos are from real Kodak people with real opinions and insights. We see returns such as: appreciation for photo tips, thanks for sharing great pictures, accolades for speaking to people directly, kudos for providing a channel to provide feedback. Those all seem pretty positive to us, especially for the low barrier to entry it takes to join in social media conversations. It is more about sharing passions, being real, and mutual respect. I wonder what mathematical equation I can great to measure that…-tom
In our experience, the greatest value social media is providing to the larger communications world is the multidisciplinary alignment around FEEDBACK.
The power of feedback received through open dialogue delivers a tremendous tool to any communications team.
Finally, with real substantial data, communications teams now have the opportunity to play a critical role in inter-disciplinary strategies involving sales, customer service, marketing, advertising and operations.
Social media is driving alignment and cooperation between teams that have traditionally lacked any unifying set of data that made sense and is actionable to everyone.
Chris,
In my opinion, there are two most valuable things a company can do to improve its social media marketing - to be resourceful and to facilitate communication.
Most social media users go online to communicate, to get advice or just for fun. The majority of them don’t care about Facebook pages and “social” ads, newly launched websites or corporate blogs. What they care about is getting in touch with their friends and family.. or finding new people to interact with. They might want to listen to some good music or learn how to write a perfect grad school application essay. They would like to share their thoughts and experiences and learn from others.
Social media is about communication.. So, if you are selling rock climbing gear, start a social network for rock climbers, let them interact with one another, share their experiences, upload their photos and videos. Occasionally, sponsor an event and announce it on your social network, or organize a “Best Climbing Picture” contest and give out a pair of climbing shoes. Use your blog to write reviews on the best climbing places, discuss climbing techniques, give advice on the climbing gear… or post interviews. Building communities and facilitating communication - this is what social media is all about.
Wow - all these Comments are so thoughtful and helpful. You are right Chris - getting people focused around a single task is a great way to see how “Social Services” can optimize the process. So, that is my goal… to select existing traditional business deals I am working on to include my favorite Social Media tools like my Blog, Twitter, Udderit, Campfire, whatever… Stay tuned!
INNOVATION
The value that i see as being very evident is INNOVATION …
Using the new tools, discussing the new tools, exploring, testing, playing, etc …
Coming up with suggestions & ideas about how the tools ‘could’ be used and what they ‘could’ do keeps pushing the envelope and forcing change, adoption and acceptance by the corporate world. Once it really takes off … a whole new world of innovation will happen.
–
http://twitter.com/franswaa
Hey Chris,
I think it’s great that you’re giving us the floor today. This is the first time I read your blog, and that Twitter that I found it. It’s a bit ironic that I was just having this same conversation with a co-worker today.
We both agreed that our generation is coming up in all the industries and will be the execs and leaders in the near future, but waiting until then to find ways to incorporate the methods and environments for community that we have now will be too late. I think it is a huge challenge for us to show our teammates the value that online communities and social networking has and will continue to have, but it is an exciting cahllenge. In it we get to help shape and mold new culture, not just technology or methods. We get to put flesh and blood to the principles, technolgies, etc. This is such and exciting time we live in, and I am looking forward to actively participating with people all across the board and figure out ways to unite and communicate, connect and build relationships.
I too am disappointed for not making time to attend this conference. But being a Boston sports fan I know that “there’s always next year”.
Here’s my take on this topic. I run a small-ish, niche, B-C business with my husband. We both come from large Fortune 500 backgrounds and we’ve both worked exclusively in B-C, specifically consumer products.
We’ve been blogging for nearly two years and podcasting for about the same. I’ve spent the better part of my waking hours over the past 5 months trying to get my arms around the next level of social media - Twitter, Facebook, etc. Our industry in general were early adopters of blogs and podcasts, as are our customers. I KNOW our blog is working as is the podcast. Both are generating new customers, sales and quite honestly increased sales among existing customers. Can I justify every penny of expense? Nope. But the cost, including labor are so much lower than the traditional marketing and advertising channels, it’s not even a comparison.
Don’t get me wrong, as the marketer in our business, I not only have to justify things to the finance guy, I’m married to him. He’s not 100% convinced yet, but he’s getting there. I had a customer post last week on Twitter (never would have seen this tidbit any where else) who was disgusted that she ordered two books from Amazon and three weeks later they hadn’t shipped. She mentioned she should have ordered them from my company.
I Twittered her directly, she PM’d me back and in under 30 mins she had cancelled her Amazon order and had called into my customer service folks with her cc #. Sale done, books shipped that day. Now, I didn’t close a huge deal by any means, but I got that customer what she wanted, when she wanted it. She was thrilled. She’ll be back and she’ll tell her friends, etc. Might not be able to track all of that, other than her purchases, but they will come and I know there will be a bigger payoff.
Taking care of the customer, beyond just selling them stuff is the difference. It’s about interacting with the customer, making it a two-way conversation, not a one-way relationship. Relevant content and being real - key for us.
I could go on, but I think I’ve already far exceeded a rational amount of comment space. Sorry. I’m just jazzed about this topic and I have to say finding this blog has been such a great help.
It’s fantastic to talk about poverty for a day, but it’s even better to think about it every day. Every time you enjoy a $3 coffee drink, realize that a $25 loan to an entrepreneur in a country where the average daily wage is $1 is a wonderful thing.
Kudos to http://kiva.org for making it so easy to help people all over the planet you share with them. Dignity is a wonderful gift. Our loans bring multiple benefits to entire families and their communities.
I have made it a point to continue my kiva.org support for nearly two years, adding a loan for every $25 that comes in through my online conferences. I’ve invited some friends, and they have all surpassed the average loan levels. I’ve gifted people who don’t need other more worldly kinds of gifts.
Thanks to great bloggers like Chris Brogan, who supported our “Kivathon” 24 hour live podcast in March of 2007.
I think we as humans are creatures of habit, we try to duplicate what we know despite the medium. When we interact with each other in person, we smile and nod and talk. The internet strips away all the visible ques of conversation and forces us to rely on text. However, even in text we try to replicate human interaction and that is how blogging and social media evolved.
To me, blogging is a way to share with others we might not have the opportunity to talk with face-to-face. As far as business goes I often tell my clients that their website is their sales pitch and their blog is their “one-on-one” or “let’s get coffee” meeting. Its give us a chance to share, be open and assert our uniqueness compared to other companies and our peers.
Often a blog is more of an opening to a conversation instead of a complete one. There is a chance for readers to respond with their own thoughts and ideas without all the outside interruptions that happen during a real life conversation (noise, phone calls, other people interrupting).
So I guess to me, blogging is really the first step to meaningful conversation online.
engaging marketers in utilizing and understanding social media is one dimension…I would suggest that the most critical dimension is from the listening of the consumer…what do consumers want from marketers in the realm and space of social media. I think the fundamental mistake that marketers might make is pushing their traditional marketing message into social media…rather than a dialogic engagement with their consumers in an open, honest, candid, transparent way…what does the consumer who engages in social media want…we answer that…we open the gateway of opportunity for the marketer…@MolsonFerg