Conversation as marketing

Conversation is cool. It’s great. It’s kind of the mantra of the whole web 2.0 movement. Conversation, interaction, creation, sharing. So it should come as no surprise that some people are trying to put everything on a marketing formula in order to have a packaged product that can be sold to clients and advertisers for a fee.

It’s all great. I like conversational marketing, as it’s called. But only some parts of it. Because fundamental parts are actually cunningly evil in their making.

I’m of course referring to the idea that if you work with conversational marketing, what you essentially do is that you identify the places, where people connect and discuss which ever products or services that your client is offering, and then you pay the owners of those media properties to talk up your clients products.

For the record: I think that approach is inauthentic and dishonest. In fact I find it disgusting to a degree where I seriously question the long term sustainability of the approach.

But what I do like about conversation marketing is all the tools and measurements that comes along with it. Because we need better measurements for measuring engagement in a wide variety of ways. Social engagement. Why? Because when we do have fixed formulas for how to value comments, sharing, RSS subscriptions etc. we will - seen from a purely new media stand point - have a situation, where online advertising will be king. Where there will be so much more to offer - so much better ROI - that the drive from other types of advertising towards online will grow even more in scale.

That will be a sweet day, indeed.

Vad NU! is a consultancy company owned by Mads Kristensen and specialized in helping clients take advantage of the business opportunities created by new media. Click to learn how I can help you and your company.