Marketing IS Conversation

“Markets are conversations” was a concept first published in the Cluetrain Manifesto.  It’s 2007 and social media is hot.  That concept needs an update.  Marketing is conversation.

I drew a bubble cloud on my white board at BMC to illustrate this point.  In the middle of the cloud were “conversations @ BMC”.  Outside of the cloud lived all of the areas we want to influence.  Conversations = relationships = revenue.  It’s that simple.  And, if you are in business, you want to scale your conversations so you can influence your market, show your thought leadership and drive brand awareness, and build collaborative relationships with your audience to build your content and messaging. As marketers, you no longer have to do this alone.  Now, you do it fully aligned with and collaboratively with your community.

And, oh boy, the technology is here for scaling these conversations.  Many companies who are full force into Web 2.0 built a “roll your own” internal solution for managing these conversations.  Now, we’re all ready for an update.  At BMC, we’ve looked at multiple vendors who have content management systems developed specifically for social media.  Some are not quite there yet with features and functionality; others are just repurposed content management systems looking to be the next Vignette.

I’ve seen one that is vastly different than the others, yet right on, in that the technology is built with social media in mind.  It’s almost like the developers actually understand Cluetrain and the importance of these conversations, because virtually everything done in this system is a conversation – whether it’s a poll, survey, blog, or whatever.  And, you can render different views of the conversation on the fly.  So, if I decide I think my audience would respond to a list view better than a detailed view, I can change it right away.  And, I can configure “listeners” to get feeds about what others are saying about me.  It’s kind of sneaky and cool, like putting your ear up to a door and listening to the conversation on the other side, then opening the door and responding immediately when you hear something said about you.

I won’t tell you the name of that vendor, but that style of thinking is right on track where the CMS for social media needs to go.  While everyone else is choosing backend systems that will make them look pretty much like everyone else in 2 years, this vendor is 5 years ahead.  What does that have to do with the update to the Cluetrain?  Marketing is conversation.  Your backend infrastructure to support these conversations is important.

You might say the backend isn’t important and should be transparent to the user.  That’s only partly true.  Think back to the last time you chose a CMS.  Was it a bad decision?  Did that CMS slow you down?  Was it everything you were promised?  What does it do for you today?  The decision to buy a tool to support conversations you will be deliberately influencing is critical.  And, since you'll be using it for several years at least, how far ahead it looks into the future is important.  Don’t sweep the backend decision under the table.  Marketing is conversation.

The battle rages on in marketing organizations everywhere between the Web 1.0 traditionalists and the Web 2.0 savvy professionals.  Both views are sometimes needed while we're in this transition.  But, content is, more than ever, king.  Build that content with your community.  Because...well, you know.  Marketing is conversation.