Conversational Marketing

Brand mangers face a big challenge with social marketing because it requires a willingness to engage in a two-way conversation with customers. What if they are unhappy with your product or service?

Someone asked me last week about the best way to communicate with your target audience once you had identified their neighborhoods. I was catching up on some blog posts over the weekend when I saw this great post by John Cass on conversational blogging.

If you take John’s post and replace the world blogging with social marketing you have the framework for conversational social marketing:

“Effective blogging [social marketing] is about joining an existing conversation, rather than interrupting your audiences’ conversation. What that means in practicality is that a corporate blogger [social marketer] does not pitch their articles to other bloggers, or ask for links directly. Rather a blogger [social marketer] should look for opportunities to join in an existing conversation. Make comments with relevant statements on another blog or write a follow up post on your own blog.”

There are a lot of similarities between effective blogging and effective marketing on a social media site like MySpace. As John pointed out, the key is joining an existing conversation rather than interrupting it with off-topic messaging that your audience could view as spam. Bide your time and over the long-run you will find that a open, conversational approach to social marketing is the most effective way to get your message across.