Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

The Twitter @ConversationAge Effect

[click on image to enlarge - total is 97,476 clicks] Readers of this blog and many of you who follow what I share on Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook know that I well written and helpful content gets my attention. On this blog and my site I focus on writing it, on the other social networks I focus on sharing from the writing of others. How much have I shared just using HootSuite just shy of 11 months? Let's call it 990 links where I used the site's shortening ow.ly. That is 4-5 links per weekday. Great brain food to get... Read more →

Putting Listening to Work with Customers

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) recently produced a playbook that contains more than 35 case studies of putting listening to work, written by Steve Rappaport, the Advertising Research Foundation’s Knowledge Solutions Director. The playbook is about listening to customer conversations and seeks to answer four questions that ARF members and many industry folks are asking: what is listening? how is it used? how is it done? where is it going? Thanks to Lynne Johnson, who I met when she was the community manager at Fast Company and editor of FastCompany.com, I had access to a free early review copy [disclosure]... Read more →

What PR Professionals Can Learn from Dating Sites

While blogger/PR types are just now fumbling around, trying to find a way to turn a buck on relationships without cheapening what they do, dating sites are wildly popular. Jut take a look at this link, and you'll see there are many more than the one or two known names. So popular, they're making money -- either from subscriptions, or from advertising. Lots. What, then, can public relations professionals learn from dating sites? Clarity of Intent -- Dating sites aren't about starting "conversations." Nor is the role of the middleman ambiguous. For all parties, it's all about the end result.... Read more →

Ten Ways to Be More You

This week we tackled some pretty hefty concepts: who we trust, how we impress and who impresses us, how we participate in social networks, new potential for relationships, and adding value. In all of those instances, the answer is to be more you. Take a look. Trust is something that depends on your credibility, which is the results of your actions and how others perceive you through them. This in turn determines how we impress, while our own filters dictate who impresses us. Your philosophy for participation in social networks may read similar to that of another, yet without you,... Read more →

Stop Adding Value

This is something we keep hearing about, how people and companies need to add value. Adding value is fast becoming the new bubble. A few years ago, Marshall Goldsmith, the world's top executive coach, questioned the cost of adding value in his debut post at Fast Company. In the opening, Goldsmith outlines a very powerful piece of advice: In my experience, one of the most common challenges that successful people face is a constant need to win. When the issue is important, they want to win. When the issue is trivial, they want to win. Even when the issue isn't... Read more →

Why Social Media Is the New Agency-Client Relationship Builder

We've looked at many ways in which giving importance to social interaction and integration of online and off line leads to better engagement with customers -- new and existing. Social is also inspiring many to move away from campaign-focused thinking to ongoing relationship-building. There is a set of relationships brands engage in that may need revisiting in view of this game changing dynamic -- that of the company and its agency(ies). Is the new spot that social media gained in the PowerPoint reports to executive teams in many companies causing marketing and communications teams to revisit their relationships with agencies... Read more →

How I Participate in Social Networks

I'm borrowing a page off the Communicatrix blog to lay out how I participate in social networks. Why? Because we all have a different strategy to how we spend our time and energy to be social and to achieve our goals and since we have a strategy, in the spirit of social, we should make it transparent. [hat tip to Skip Shuda for suggesting it] I've been getting more than many requests from several people in many networks lately. Requests to friend, requests to tweet, to forward, to bookmark, to stumble, the list goes on. Being online for the best... Read more →

Are You Customer-Averse?

We all know the story of how Comcast went from customer-averse to customer-friendly. It started online with a person, and it's making its way to the rest of the organization. You will agree with me that Comcast went from this episode, to this action, to this thinking. They went from customer-averse, to customer-friendly. It didn't happen overnight, still it did. Competition helps, too, so we keep our fingers crossed on any one company getting too big to care. Businesses continue to look for more ways to get new business either from new or current customers -- usually both, in this... Read more →

Trust in Media Down, Good News for Experts

Trust in business and Government has gone up in the last year, while trust in media seems to be declining across the board -- this is the latest finding of the latest annual Edelman Trust Barometer survey. Take a look at the executive report and see that: Trust in traditional media is trending downward: TV news dropped by 20 points radio news dropped by 17 points print news dropped by 12 points Trust in digital media is still pretty low, and although corporate communications are trending higher than social networks, they're still not that high. We've all witnessed the decline... Read more →

The Future Online is Subscription-Based: Why I Joined Third Tribe

Clearly, the title left out a few pieces of information. I believe there is still a future online for free, but increasingly, the way to get things done, to go from conversation to agent, is subscription-based. Why? Accountability, resources, self-selected network, and opportunity to syndicate service, for a fee. The service for a fee model interests me most. That's why I joined Third Tribe as a member this week. The whole velvet rope community concept should make brands pay attention. This is not just a build a community to push your products, or just engage customers in your stuff kind... Read more →