Conversational Media Marketing

Lately, I've been giving more attention to the use of wikis for networking collaboratively, having started three, including the What's Working in Social Media one I mentioned yesterday. The other two are private, one related to something we're doing at Bizzuka, and one for a group I've been invited to be part of.

Part of the reason I'm doing this is for research on my upcoming book on social media marketing, but mostly its because I want to embrace the power of social networking in its most collaborative form to date, a wiki. A number of do-it-yourself wiki platforms are available, but I favor WetPaint for its ease of use.

I read an excerpt from Clay Shirky's new book Here Comes Everybody that said, "We are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action. These changes will transform the world everywhere groups of people come together to accomplish something."

Thanks to tools like wikis, the technological barriers to co-creation, collaboration and change have largely been eliminated. The one barrier that remains is human being's willingness to actively engage. The 90-9-1 rule still seems to be in effect and our reluctance to participate has to be overcome. Otherwise, the influence remains in the hands of a relative few.

A great resource for better understanding the power of wikis to foster social change is a PDF entitled Working Wikily: How Networks are Changing Social Change, written by the Monitor Institute. They've also created a blog by the same name.

Once again, let me invite you to join in participating on the What's Working wiki. The only way that site will have any real value is by virtue of the contributions of its members.

Hat tip to Connectedness

I've started a wiki called What's Working in Social Media to serve as a clearinghouse of information about what companies are doing in terms of their use of social media for marketing, customer service and business communications in general.

I'm looking for "real world" case studies, examples, stories and illustrations and welcome your participation.

Like I say on the wiki, "The days of 'touchy-feely, warm-and-fuzzy' thinking about social media marketing is over. The CEO wants to know if it has ROI potential and can positively effect the bottom line. Everyone from real estate agents to CMOs at F1000s are asking, 'Does it work? If so, how?'"

I'm using this as a research tool for my new book on social media marketing. In addition, I'm going to produce an ebook consisting of 101 examples, all of which will be drawn from the wiki (assuming I can get 101 from it). Attribution will of course be given to each contributor.

We currently have, at the time of this post, 60 members and I welcome your participation. Click here to sign up.