Message vs. Conversation
In the old paradigm Marketers, Public Relations, and Advertising agencies would develop a "one size fits all" message and blast it to a general audience for consumption. This was a one-way channel of communication between the messenger and everyone else. Although marketers and advertisers could gather feedback from their audiences through surveys and focus groups and adjust their messaging accordingly, but there was no true interaction with the recipients of the messaging.
This is no longer the case. There has been a sea-change in how people consume information as well as in the direction that information goes. People are no longer limited to just consuming information. Now they can interact with marketers and advertisers, turning a one-way message into a conversation to which their input adds value. What’s more, they can spread the conversation through their own networks, allowing their friends, family, and colleagues to add their value to the conversation as it gets redistributed across networks.
Today, instead of asking "what is our message" companies need to ask "what is the conversation?” One of the keys to the successful use of Social Media & Marketing is to make it easier for end-users (aka consumers) to find information that is relevant to them, engage in a conversation, and then disseminate it through their own networks. This is done by providing re-usable content and online destinations to help them gather, add value and redistribute the conversation/message.
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