Conversational Marketing/Word of Mouse - first articleJohn Battelle on Conversational Marketing - second article
What is the Real Time Search? Definitions&Players - third article (this one was not assigned)
Am I gonna get to hear from Coca Cola whenever I tweet my friends that I'm thirsty? Really??? It seems like it's exactly what companies want to do with conversational marketing and real time search.
As described in the first article, for the last 10 years the Internet produced three solid ad categories:
- "Display" or "banner" ads (graphical boxes on web pages)
- Classified ads (like Craigslist)
- Search advertising (now it's the largest)
He also talks about another interesting development on the web - real time search. Real time search is basically looking through material where there's practically no delay between composition and publishing (like tweeting). Blogging already is not in that category as it takes time to write a paragraph and do research (minutes compare to tweeting's seconds). Real time search lets you see what people are saying now and presents you with an opportunity to engage into the conversation.
I know that in my career I will have to worry about my company's bottom line and how effective the marketing is etc, but, God, I hope social media where I have a page will let me to opt out from conversations with Coca Cola... Well, it's not just a matter of hope, they'll lose me if they don't.
Agreed! I don't want to deal with companies constantly contacting me if I don't want to be contacted!
ReplyDeleteYes, companies need to LISTEN to our conversation to stay updated on consumer thoughts/issues. Otherwise, they will
ReplyDeleteNo, they should not BOMBARD you with unwanted info or ads (and hence, useless if there's no consumer interest).
Now consumers are more demanding and expect more engagement from the brands they purchase from. Firms need to understand this and convert this "new" source of information into their R&D and customer service models. What was a one-way communication or dictatorship from brands to consumers is out the window. Consumers have a much louder voice now and they know it; they want to be heard.
Well, I certainly hope that the rise of conversational marketing improves customer service.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the turn around time is to see an actual affect on the service. Does anyone know how companies approach it?
Do they use a statistical model or just surveys? How do they decide which suggestions to incorporate?
Shruti,
ReplyDeleteHow you managed to send your comment tomorrow? (Feb 5th) :)
Jokes aside, you ask excellent questions! We can ask them in class. I imagine, one way to do it could be to run customer surveys with questions about their buying behavior (e.g."How often you have bought something you read about on Twitter" etc.) In any event, any generated results should be looked into carefully, because you can ask 10 people about a new product and, if all of them liked it, you get "100% approval rating".