Conversation is about people, not platforms

By Brent Dixon on April 18, 2007

4 Comments

If you haven’t yet read Dave Armano’s BusinessWeek article, “It’s the Conversation Economy, Stupid,” kindly stop what you’re doing, take the phone off the hook, give the kids some Benedryl, and do so.

Here’s a taste:

One of the engines that is driving “2.0” growth is the fact that communities are forming around popular social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Twitter‚Äîthe list goes on and on. These platforms facilitate conversation. Conversation leads to relationships and relationships lead to affinity.

Brand affinity, as companies such as Harley-Davidson (HOG) have proven, often drives communities to form around them. This is why anyone who plays a role in branding needs to become a conversation architect. Marketers, businesses, and designers must have an intimate understanding of how these platforms are evolving and influencing human behavior. There has to be an in-depth understanding of why some us of love to incorporate these services in our digital lives.

I like that Armano emphasizes people over platforms. It’s very easy to get caught up in technological possibilities while not paying due diligence to the conversations you’re working to incite. Each social media platform enables conversation in a very specific way, and none of them work independently.

As a business, before blogging or Twittering or Yelping or any of these other verbs that didn’t exist a few years ago, don’t stop with the knowledge that these create dialogue. Understand how and why as well.

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  • Derek Guyer on April 18

    Read it, loved it and been wallowing in the ideas ever since.

    I’ve personally been a little turned off by what seems to be an overuse and abuse of these types of tools and know it’s only going to get worse with time. In my business, I want to know why that makes sense. If the why makes sense to me for my business, then let’s talk how. If it does in fact make sense, then lay it on me. If I don’t get either the why or the how, I’m gonna “drop it like it’s hot”.

  • Roger Conant on April 19

    Hi Brent—My first thought was…”Isn’t this a great time to be in marketing, I mean…conversation architecture. And CU’s have a wonderful opp to use their “education reputation” to do just this. But they cannot assume that “they are already doing it!” Thanks

  • Brent on April 19

    It is an exciting time for marketing, and for culture in general. I’m hoping that in a few years this will mean the end of BS as we know it (idealistic, I know, but let me dream).

  • Brent on April 20

    Speaking of the end of BS, another must-read is “ad:tech For The People ,” by Paul McEnany:

    ”...while fear swirls throughout the traditional towers of advertising, we should be rejoicing together in the knowledge that when we go to work tomorrow, we can stop talking about interrupting, annoying, and pestering a passive target into a purchase, but focus on working with our customers towards a more mutually satisfying goal. And, when the consumers get what they want, when they want, and we make a little money facilitating the process, we can all sleep better at night.”

    Read the whole thing here

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