socialADDICT

As Internet marketers all know Web 2.0 is all about the user. Users are the ones generating the content; uploading their ideas in the form of blogs and podcasts, sharing pictures and music with the community, and taking the initiative to share their knowledge and exert energy into some kind of niche network. With so many communities sprouting up continuously, we as marketers and mediators of communities need to learn how to distinguish our blogs, our podcasts, and the design experiences of our community. We need to differentiate our ideas, design our conversations, develop relationships and promote the community. Ultimately become a conversation architect.

Think of it as a site mediator on steroids. Constantly promoting the community, building up a great user experience, developing relationships and nurturing those relationships is what makes the new generation of marketing so exciting. The conversation architect is also about acceptance. Marketers must accept and understand the shift in power from marketer to consumer (user). And in order to understand, marketers need to talk with the users. Sounds simple right? You’d be surprised how little conversing goes on between the people behind the website and the end user. In my opinion those will be the sites that ultimately FAIL.

Even with a shift in power, marketers and designers are still developing the interface but they are now giving up the control of what should be done inside the site. Instead, successful sites have extremely dynamic content, offer endless potential to their community, and embrace fresh and funky user generated ideas. On top of accepting this idea of fluidity, marketers should be the conversation architects to facilitate the conversations and ideas with all members of the community. At this point you will begin to thrive a vibrant community full of active, loyal, and influential members.

I’m continuously working towards becoming a great conversation architect.

Also, can I get my business cards updated?

Photo Courtesy of freshpeel.com/2007/03/

I am really getting sick of the term “pitch”. So many times people ask me to write a pitch for a press or new release and I just cringe at the thought. It sounds so sales-y and impersonal to me. Not to mention it sounds like “bitch” and nobody likes that either. My philosophy & strategy has always been about creating authentic conversation (if you didn’t get that from my blog already) and to avoid crappy pitches (by the way they don’t work on me either).

So to further solidify my position I did some research and personally asked a few top-notch traditional marketing bloggers how they like to be approached about product launches, web app launches, etc. and what really ticks them off about being approached. Here are their answers:

Steve Rubel (PR, Micropersuasion Blog): “Ultimately it’s about the blogger themselves – what’s in it for them. Figure out their mo and how to achieve win-win. Take a look at a post I linked to 4 Rules to Understand What Makes People Tick: http://tinyurl.com/24akk9”

Seth Godin (Author, Entrepreneur, Blog): “pr doesn’t work on me, or press releases. my readers have my ear, not marketers.”

Kevin Dugan (Strategic Public Relations, prBlog): “it’s always going to go back to my audience. consumer vs business, young vs old. a lot of factors to consider with who before I worry about the what. they all have their place. there is sadly no silver bullet. in my day job we use direct marketing and PR more than anything else. not trying to be vague. It’s true!”

My takeaway is just to develop relationships and really nurture them. And with that being said don’t be fake or superficial because it will backlash. Be who you are and stay authentic and for the love of God please stop calling it a “pitch”! Or I’ll bitch slap you.