Opening up a conversation can be a revolutionary concept for the traditional marketing strategy. Allowing your network to transform from “audience” to “conversationalists” means giving up control of your brand. Repeat after me:how

“Here, network: Own my brand.”

It’s no longer a message, it’s a conversation. This will challenge your traditional content like never before. Rather then talking at your consumer, you’re discussing your product/service with them. This means you don’t own the jargon, the message, or even the attitude: for better or worse, the conversation will happen.

A few tips on influencing your brand-related conversation:

• Never cover-up negativity; instead, immediately address it.
  A Twitter user recently tweeted a complaint about Comcast rates and reliability. Rather then ignoring the problem or bragging about how great their service REALLY is, the @comcastcares team responding with: “Can I look into that for you?”
• Don’t be afraid to let your company personality to shine.
  To continue driving home the “neighborhood” feel of their restaurants, Applebees launched their Real Videos promotion, requesting patron videos of them having fun and building community. While I wouldn’t model a plan after this initiative, it’s a step in the right direction.
• Let your network tell YOU what they want–and communicate your response to it. ASK them.
  Just 2 hours ago, @zappos (the Zappos CEO) tweeted: “Poll: “Poll: If you were able to take a peek behind the scenes at Zappos, what would you be interested in learning?” Rather then assuming the network wanted just another company-about video…they ASKED.

Tags: brand, conversation marketing, How to, Social Media

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Social Media, business, communication, marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.