A Look Into Conversation Marketing

I was reading a post over at AJAXWORLD Magazine and they had a definition of a concept called Conversation Marketing. The definition of Conversation Marketing:

The strategic and tactical ways in which a company chooses to participate/engage/interact in the market conversation. As opposed to the typical definition of Social Media Marketing, Conversation Marketing focuses on building mutually beneficial relationships with Influencers; responding to market conversation topics and initiating topics that do not include traditional marketing messages; extrapolating market conversation content to utilize as company/product proof points and to counter sales objections; and internalizing the market conversation for business growth.

The biggest problem I have with web-based/business terms/overall marketing idea definitions is that… more often than not… they are hard to comprehend and understand. This definition is part of that pain. For the average business owner or sales director it is hard to understand and place exactly what conversation marketing actually is…

In order to fully comprehend the idea of conversation marketing take a look at the first sentence of the definition:

The strategic and tactical ways in which a company chooses to participate/engage/interact in the market conversation.

Conversation marketing can be based in an online or offline environment but the more important thing to remember are the three touch-points of the concept:

Participate. Engage. Interact… The three pillars of conversation marketing.

A successful word-of-mouth or viral strategy should always contain the three items listed above. If you do not participate it is hard to engage… and if you do not engage… interaction will fail miserably.

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