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No More Talk Of Conversations
SEM News Source: http://www.altogetherdigital.com
Published: Feb 24, 2009 - 09:58 am
Story Found By: NickWilsdon 1082 Days ago
Category: SEM
Ciaran explains why he’s steering clear of the buzzword "conversation" when describing a relationship between a brand & a consumer. Despite the hype, real, honest-to-goodness conversations so rare as to be remarkable when they do exist.
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from Gab 1082 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Comments disabled there so:Blogs, twitter and FB aren’t convos, by themselves, that’s true. But they enable convos. Having your own expensive platform inhouse to host the cnvo isn’t necessary. Then only big corps would be conversant. Ironically, especially offline (part f the Cluetrain inspiration), SMBs converse most with their clients.

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from ciaran 1082 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I agree that those tools ’enable’ conversations but that doesn’t mean that the things that happen on them (when brands are involved) actually are conversations. I’ve got two legs which should, in theory, enable me to run 100m in 10 seconds. But i can’t & don’t. I think my main gripe is that most of the time that brands/agencies use the word, what they mean is "We would like to think that consumers really care about what we are saying and want to respond". But most of the time that’s simply not the case and we know it.Like I say in the post, I realise that there are conversations between people & brands, but not very often.

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from saysomestuff 1082 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Great take on it Ciaran,I worked with a creative agency several years ago who pitched (successfully!!) that a flash ’social space’ where prospective customers could add one of 5 little Mii-style characters and a short message was good value for over £20k and would enable some ’viral’ to spreadUntil they were asked why on earth anyone would do it....I never cease to be astonished by the field-of-dreams mentality, that putting something on a new channel constitues leveraging, interacting or in any way contributing to it.

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from inflatemouse 1082 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I’m going to play devil’s advocate. Most businesses put up a venue for communication: blog, forum, whatever. That puts the ball in the customer’s court. And...well... no one cares. It probably is not the companies fault that the conversation isn’t happening. Like your quote from Danny Sullivan points out-- we don’t want to talk about artificial sweetener (your business).Just because we ignore business communications doesn’t make them less earnest.Also, good post.

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from DianeV 1081 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Perhaps my company doesn’t fall into the Web "conversation" scenario because we don’t sell stuff that customers buy in volume. Nor stuff for which we’d set up a public support venue to enable clients to discuss their wants/issues/needs. If clients want to talk to us, we use email and the phone -- now there’s a conversation, and better yet for the fact that it’s private.There IS a need for private communications for many businesses. Imagine one of your clients wanting to discuss market trends with respect to his business ... online, where everyone can read it. Imagine posting your responses online.However, a public support "conversation" area does work where it’s needed, if it’s handled correctly and if the public uses it.Still, the use of the word "conversation" has always made me grit my teeth. It’s not as if omitting to provide a public discussion area means a company is out of communication with its customers. It just doesn’t work for all scenarios.

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