Join the conversation, or else...

As a lot of brands have found out that their customers (current, lapsed, potential,, etc.) are a social bunch. They've also found that if you have a brand and don't give them a platform to vent their concerns as well as their praise, they go and create one anyway. And these days, given the ease with with anyone can create a Facebook fan page or similar place, there will be a dozen different conversations going on about the same topic in next to no time.

But several brands have found that it is wise to not just join the conversation, but to provide a central place where discussions about them can be had.

Toyota, following the recent recall troubles it has had, decided to team up with Techmeme.com to create: http://toyotaconversations.com/. This is a site where you can see all social media buzz about the ongoing issue as well as Toyota's own ongoing information.

Nokia have done a similar thing with their site http://conversations.nokia.com/ where they have turned a blog into an entire communication platform including video & podcasts as well as some fun applications.

However UK fashion retailer ASOS have taken this one step further with http://www.asosfollowsfashion.com/. Launched earlier this month, the site allows you to quickly see the aggregated Twitter messages from people and brands in the fashion industry, including ASOS's competition. This is a bold move to try and curate not just its own brand messages, but those of the entire online fashion communication space.

Conversation economics

What's the value of a conversation?

Or to put it another way, what's the opportunity cost of not having a conversation with your customers? (And by a conversation... I actually mean a continuous dialogue not a one-way monologue that pushes information at them).

We're now living in a world of Attention Economics, where the attention of a customer is easily lost and so very hard to regain (especially if your business is commoditised). So basically a lost conversation is a lost customer, and with the cost of customer retention usually far cheaper than new customer acquisition... even the financial benefits are obvious.

The Conversation Prism

The Conversation Prism
Originally uploaded by b_d_solis

Brian Solis (Mr PR 2.0) has evolved the concept of the 'Social Media Starfish' (I'm sorry, I could never take that label seriously) into The Conversation Prism, explained further here.
Here he tries (and succeeds more than anyone I've seen so far) to map the different conversation sites and technologies across the Web2.0 landscape.

I think this is a bold step and one that we will see improve over time. I'm especially sure that there are far more indexes and scales along which to measure the impact, effectiveneess and relationships of these intertwining tools, services & networks. Lets see where this goes in the future.

[Cheeky note: I also hope that NBC don't realise their 'Peacock' has been borrowed!]