Today’s guest post is written by Brian Carter. 

I bet you’ve heard plenty about the importance of conversation in social media.

We’ve all heard companies must engage their customers online. We’ve probably said it ourselves.

But is conversation the most important thing in social media?

What’s The Value of Conversation?

Few will question the value of conversation. It extends customer service and makes PR more personal. But does conversation improve the bottom line?

Case studies suggest social companies do better than their non-social competitors.

If we’ve proven conversational companies are more profitable, is it because conversation made them more visible?

There are more reliable ways to reach the masses. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Robert Herzog, chief financial officer at Harrison College.

Chaos. You’ve been there. How did you handle it as a leader? A recent Twitter conversation between Gini Dietrich and me around the “Jay vs. Conan” debate helped illuminate a few points for me on how to lead – and not lead – in times of chaos.

As Conan started his new show on TBS recently, the untold story of the “Tonight Show” debacle (chronicled in this insightful Vanity Fair article) was that the whole situation could have been different if the NBC executives had led differently. Let’s discuss in comments, but I believe they made two key errors. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Becky Johns, author of I’m Working On It.

The business world is obsessed with social media. It is obsessed with “conversation” and “engagement” and other such buzzwords.

Yes, the way people use the web in a social way allows better contact with customers and prospects. And, yes, it presents an opportunity to gather insightful information about consumer behavior.

But despite these realities, many companies are still simply broadcasting stale marketing messages. Media itself isn’t social; people are.

Remember why social media got its name in the first place? The important part is social. But it doesn’t work without messages worth sharing. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Mark Schaefer, author of {grow}.

I was reading a blog post the other day and this comment captured my attention: “Content is NOT king. It is the conversation around that content that is king.”

I recently wrote about how many of these conversations we THINK are occurring on the social web that are not occurring at all. A blog comment is not a conversation. A tweet or a status update is not a conversation. Pushing a “like” button is not a conversation.

So if you accept that we rarely have real conversations around here, what ARE we doing and does it have any affect on sales? Yes, I said sales. Marketers do not exist to drive re-tweets or page views. We exist to sell more stuff to more people for more money. Continue Reading »

Catherine Novak over at WordSpring wrote a great post Tuesday on the merits of content versus conversation. As the word count on the comment I began to leave for her continued to grow, I realized I just might have a blog post of my own on my hands.

In her post, Catherine quotes Cory Doctorow (via Clay Shirky): “Conversation is King, content is just something to talk about.”

When I blog, my primary goal is to strike a conversation. Some people write for catharsis. Some to preach. Some to sell. I write for conversation.

“But this very post is published on a business blog,” you might be thinking. “Isn’t the point of a business blog to sell?”

And it would be difficult to argue with you – or with Joe Pulizzi, who wrote a solid post of his own on Tuesday entitled “Sales Is the Reason Your Content Exists.” But, wait, hear me out. Continue Reading »

Today’s digital age is about connection, conversation, and candy. Alright, not candy. I couldn’t think of another C word and I love candy.

Connection, conversation, and engagement. Even transparency and honesty. Open your door, pull up your windows, let people in and take a peek around, and decide if they want to work with you or, better, want to refer their communities to you.

It’s changing the way media relations (or publicity) is conducted because no longer do clients have to rely on a PR pro’s Rolodex to get someone to pay attention to them. And no longer are the critics and influencers the traditional journalists. The critics and influencers are all of us – we can rate and review products and services online, we write blogs, we even write editorials that can be featured in places we garner a lot of attention. Continue Reading »