Conversational Media Marketing

I've noticed a thread that seems to run through the social web -- an emphasis on the use of personal branding as a way to build the associated company brand.

There are a number of examples:

• Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field Marketing at BearingPoint (see conversation I had with Paul below)
• Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy and Technology at CrossTech Media
• Jason Falls, Director of Social Media at Doe-Anderson, a leading Louisville, KY advertising agency
• Jeremiah Owyang, Peter Kim, Charlene Li of Forrester fame (Peter and Charlene are no longer associated with Forrester, but you get my point)

Perhaps the way to think of these people is as spokespersons for their company.

Something my boss said recently in regard to a weekly Internet radio show we started for Bizzuka got me thinking. "What you're doing (in terms of the show) will not just help us create greater awareness among prospects, but among those considering coming to work for us," he said.

It caused me to realize that marketing, especially social media marketing, is not just about building a prospect list. Sometimes, whether intentional or not, it's also about attracting quality talent and/or wealthy investors.

Imagine, for a moment, a world without the Geico gecko or the Mac vs. Microsoft guys. A world where advertising no longer exists, at least not as we now know it. Can you? Neither can I, but a post from Mediapost blogger Dave Morgan got me thinking about it.

"Is the age of the brand slogan and advertising ending, about to be displaced by the 'age of authenticity' and conversational marketing?," Morgan asks.

Morgan, himself, suggests that notion is extreme and I have to agree. Yet, in an age of conversational media and the fact that most people trust "other people like me," branding as we've typically conceived it has changed.

The strength of a brand is now commensurate with the amount of conversation about it. As Morgan puts it, "[B]rands now live and die by how they perform for their customers, because the Internet permits those customers service stories to be amplified and shared. The power of those experiences is already starting to eclipse anything that marketers can do with advertising."

To that I reply, "Yippee!"

Back in what I now refer to as the "good old days" of business blogging (2003-2005... and I know, nobody cares about the past...I seem to revel in it), there was a proliferation of blog networks, Weblogs Inc, b5media, Creative Weblogging, Gawker, Shiny Media and others.

Many of these mimicked each other in terms of topics covered. I mean, what's a respectable blog network without a gadget blog, right?

Though I'm fond of taking backward glances, I also look forward (maybe one has to do with the other) and here's what I see: Networks similar in scope to those just mentioned consisting not of topical blogs, but of niche-specific social networks. A gadget social network, weight loss social network, reality television social network, etc.

Take the Weblogs Inc or b5 model and lay it over a social networking platform and there you have it. A "network" of social network sites. Get the idea?

I picked up on a couple of conversations today - one from Britopian and one from a blog new to me, remarkable communication - that asked similar questions about my favorite topic, social media marketing.

Britopian asked, "[I]s social media about conversions, traffic, click though rates and sales; or is it more along the lines of conversations, authenticity, transparency and building a sense of community?"

Remarkable communication asked, if you only have a budget for one, which should you do, relationship marketing or social media?

How would you answer those questions?

Reading Chris Brogan's blog is always time well spent, but his post about aspiring classical pianist Grace Nikae really caught my attention.

The post outlines her use of conversational media as a marketing tool and includes such things as a blog called Stretching Intervals, where she gives a behind-the-scenes look at life as a concert pianist. Chris also discusses her participation on social network sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and the fact that she posts content to YouTube and Flickr as well.

With all that content, the piano keyboard is not the only one Grace spends a quantity of time on.

In reviewing her site, I noticed some things Chris failed to mention.

I've been selected, along with some 274 others, to participate in the sequel to the wildly successful The Age of Conversation, a book about emerging media and marketing, collectively written by more than 100 authors from around the world.

Todd Andrlik calls the sequel "the most massive authorship undertaking in history. We’re talking Guinness Book baby!" It's not often one gets to help make history. Needless to say I'm very honored to take part.

In a subsequent post, I'll explain the purpose of the sequel in further detail. For now, I want to mention that tomorrow, Saturday, March 29, is what's being called Age of Conversation Bum Rush.

The idea is to generate as many touch points around the web as possible so that it will be hard not to spot the Age of Conversation activity.

So, we need you to...

1. Buy the Book & send others to buy the book. This is the #1 call to action, because this is where we want to see the most impact. NOTE: Please buy 1 copy at a time because Amazon counts bulk orders once, and please use this affiliate link, which will help us in tracking sales. Remember, all the proceeds from the book sales and referrals will go to charity. 

2. Blog About It - Make sure you have a prominent link to the Amazon listing so that readers can easily purchase the book. (Remember to use the affiliate link above. All of these earnings will go to charity as well.)

3. Twitter Commentary - You can follow @Freshpeel, @DrewMcLellan, @servantofchaos for tweets on this tomorrow. Also, any tweets you do on the topic, please use code #AOC so that it can be picked up by Twemes.com.

4. Trackback or Comment on the post that Chris Wilson leaves on his Fresh Peel blog March 29, at 12am CST, so that everyone can follow the conversation and help promote exposure on social sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.)

5. Digg the posts listed on Chris' site and send emails and shouts to friends requesting Diggs.

6. Stumble the posts listed & tell friends to do the same.

7. Bookmark your posts on Del.icio.us

8. Add your post to other social media outlets ( Technorati, Ma.gnolia, Furl, BlinkList, Newsvine, Facebook, etc.)

9. Send an email to your friends about the Bum Rush for AoC.

10. Keep talking - Get on ooVoo, iChat, Aim, or where ever you like to talk, and start talking.

I'll never forget the day I attended Dr. Ralph Wilson's seminar on Internet marketing in Atlanta a few years ago. It consisted of a well-planned, logical progression of practical information on how to use the Internet as a marketing vehicle. In all the wealth of knowledge Dr. Wilson shared that day, one thing stood out, an illustration he used of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

Dr. Wilson said that, if you looked closely at the wall, you would notice cracks between the blocks of stone that comprised it. He referred to them as "niches." He said the pilgrims would stuff these niches with slivers of paper, which were their prayers.

Dr. Wilson went on to recommend that we do the same thing in our marketing; rather than trying to scale the entirety of the wall, we should find an unfilled (or partially filled) niche and fill it. Brilliant!

I incorporated both the principle and his illustration into the book Realty Blogging, suggesting that blogs are good niche marketing penetration tools.

UPDATE: I found this interesting. A search of "social media marketing association" returns one result, this post. I find it hard to believe no one is talking about this topic. Maybe they are, but using different terminology. Still, strikes me as odd.

Word of mouth marketing has its association, WOMMA. Search engine marketers have their association, SEMPO. Direct marketers have theirs, and so on. Now that social media marketing has come into its own, should there be an industry association to represent it? I think so.

Call it SOMMA (Social Media Marketing Association) or COMMA (Conversational Media Marketing Association...which, of course, would be my preference), I believe for the sake of industry growth and maturity, some form of association is called for.

Well-known PR blogger Steve Rubel incited quite a bit of debate recently with a post he wrote that accused SEO experts of exploiting social media for the sole purpose of scamming search engines. One such expert, Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal, took him to task over the matter saying that the proverbial pot is calling the kettle black and that PR pros should get the log out of their own eye before trying to get the speck out of another's.

Steve seems to think there's a fire and all of us need to run to it with a bucket of water. He's certainly raising the alarm calling these "shenanigans" a "clear and present danger."   

In response, I left a lengthy comment on his blog, but am reprinting it here because the chances of you finding it among the many there are slim to none.

I agree that using blogs and social media solely for the purpose of influencing search results is disingenuous and not the best and highest use of the medium. However, I can "feel their pain." Clients place great emphasis on the need to rank higher in SERPs and the burden of that falls in the lap of the SEO specialist.

Having the spent the last couple of years introducing blogs to the real estate industry I can tell you the one thing I heard over and over again was, "Will it help me rank higher in Google?" That was the only benefit many were interested in.

Truth is, blogs especially are great SEO tools. Writing frequently-updated, keyword-optimized, thematically-relevant posts will very likely vault one to the top of the rankings. I've experienced that on numerous occasions.

From what you're saying, the desire to exploit that benefit has become as tempting to SEOs as "Turkish Delight" was to Edmund in the Chronicles of Narnia. If that is indeed the case, let me encourage a return to a healthy balance of value-added conversation combined with an emphasis on and awareness of the SEO benefit of blogs and other forms of social media. It needed need not be one or the other when it can just as easily be both/and.