Are You Just Checking the Box on Conversation?

Back in March I wrote about the second project by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan - The Age of Conversation 2. At the time, we discussed the very premise of the book, which is why don't they get it? It remains to be defined who "they" is.

The new effort, which saw the collaboration of 237 professionals, is available for purchase now at Lulu.

Pricing for The Age of Conversation 2 is:

e-book: $12.50 ($10.00 going to charity)
paperback book: $19.95 ($8.02 to charity)
hardback book: $29.95 ($6.04 to charity)

I have written out the price breakdown for a reason - I want you to see how much of the funds go to Variety, the Children's Charity, after covering the cost of production.

The book is organized in sections:

• Manifestos 
• Keeping Secrets in the Age of Conversation
• Moving from Conversation to Action
• The Accidental Marketer
• A New Brand of Creative 
• My Marketing Tragedy
• Business Model Evolution
• Life in the Conversation Lane

I contributed a one-pager on moving from conversation to action. The topics all sound very intriguing to me and I am heading over to order my copy. For a complete list of the authors see this post. There are all sorts of wonderful efforts around this project - from Gavin and Drew's herding cats (the authors) and getting them to meet deadlines, to Jay Eheret recording podcasts, to Cam Beck creating a widget, to David Reich and Nettie Hartsock leading the PR effort.

We've come thus far, these conversations are now taking place in companies - inside and outside the corporate conference rooms. Now that social media is being talked about and to some extent tried out by more and more people in a professional capacity, we are discovering that we're all in customer service, social capital and trust go hand in hand, our beloved logos are just symbols, and ROI means focused execution.

These are all excellent reasons for us to come together and take the conversation to what's next - connecting ideas and people. All this talk about conversation needs to be actualized. For brands to become social objects, as Paul Soldera put in a comment to my recent post on PepsiCo., they really need to be wrapped around a compelling reason to socialize. Let's start with that, or we might be just checking the box on conversation, and that would be a missed opportunity.

Comments

[Drew McLellan]

Valeria,

Thanks for once again being a community champion and sharing the Age of Conversation 2 with your readers.

I think they will find the book to be a very interesting mix of thinking. And best of all, the children of the world benefit!

Drew

[Barry A. Martin]

Hi Valeria,
can you help with some nomenclature here?
Sorry if this is the wrong post to ask, but I've been meaning to ask where social media marketing ends and manifesting your brand strategy begins and this post just tipped the scale for me.

Let me explain.

I consider SMM to be coming up with ways to enable conversation with or about your brand.

Doing things worth talking about is something the best brands have always done. From the majors to the locals. Every project we start begins with research to determine what people think of our client to inform our recommendations on just how to put their best foot forward. Though we're a communications design firm, we sometimes recommend people get nicer bathrooms.

Another practice that overlaps is "Social Marketing" where the brand champions an issue to have it reflect on them in some way. In the case of non-profits, this is often the best chance they have of being recognized and remembered. Larger brands use this technique to leverage their philanthropy strategically.
An example in Toronto is the "CIBC Run for the cure".

So if my firm starts a conference that fosters conversation, or sets up an initiative to rail against a concern facing my profession (like spec work), does this all fall under the rubric of Social Media Marketing?

Again, if the question has been addressed in a SMM 101 post somewhere just point me at it.

And to speak to the them of the post directly, any other reading you recommend?

Thanks,
Barry

[peter]

Barry's question is a good one.

But is social media and "manifesting your brand strategy" (communication design) part of the same system and nomenclature: let alone, a continuum with a dividing line?

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Drew - you guys worked magic on this project. Writing a page was easy, it's all that went into producing the layout, organizing the authors and working with Lulu. Thank you from all of us, I'm sure, and from the children Variety supports.

@Barry - as I mentioned in my email to you, I'd be thinking about your great questions and will probably address them in a post. As for reading, I recommend "Tribes" and "Meatball Sundae" by Seth Godin. I also just got "Reality Check" by Guy Kawasaki. To me marketing is marketing, regardless of the medium - social media is just tools that take advantage of dynamics.

@Peter - I am more inclined to see things as connected and part of the same conversation, in the right medium and venue at the right time, etc.