The Battle Between Content and Conversation

Rich, shareable content can be tremendously helpful in generating media mentions and driving traffic to one’s website. This comes from a few factors. The first, interesting material is successful over the social web. Between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more, the space becomes cluttered on a consistent basis. Thought-provoking, educational, informational posts are what helps break through the clutter and separate it from tweets about breakfast or Facebook posts about family reunions. As it is shared, more eyes come across your messaging and more potential consumers find their way to your website. The second factor comes from the search engine end. By developing content with relevant keywords to your brand’s industry, products/services, community, etc, you will appear in more search rankings. Additionally, Google algorithms for ranking order are heavily based on quality. They want to reward brands who are producing great material with better ranking results. Thus, blogs that feature rich, user-focused content will see a return from Google in higher search placement.

Okay, so we know that content is vital to a brand’s strategy and online presence. But is high quality content enough? Or do people need to be talking about it, sharing it, interacting with it? Does conversation trump content? This battle over which reigns supreme in the blogging world has been the subject of much chatter over the past few years. Catherine Novak at Social Media Today makes great points about the advantages of conversation. Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising. It goes to the listener/reader/viewer/visitor… and stops there. If the sender is lucky, it may lodge as a piece of information in the receiver’s consciousness, and they may act on it someday. If the sender is luckier, or perhaps more engaging, it may be something that the receiver wants to talk about.  And then the message gets a whole new burst of energy.  The energy behind the message is what gives it meaning and a life of its own. As consumers, we do not like to be talked “at.” Instead, we like to be talk “with.” This creates opportunities for brands to much more easily and effectively persuade than in traditional advertising settings.

In short, the content versus conversation debate is very reminiscent of the chicken and the egg scenario.  Conversations are what brands should continually be striving for. They create two-way communication opportunities for brands to interaction and learn from their direct consumers. They also open the doors to reaching larger volumes of potential customers while reinforcing brand messaging and developing a brand’s personality. However, you cannot have these conversations without great content. One comes from the other. Blogger Michael Greenberg writes about this symbiotic relationship in a post about content being king. Social marketing efforts need to be driven by content, not vice versa. Without content, there is not a whole lot to talk about. He notes that the two go hand-in-hand and marketers should be crafting their posts and positioning their marketing opportunities (events, promotions, contents) in such a way that will elicit conversation.

It is one thing to publish content that is informational. It is another to issue material that elicits a reaction and causes the message to be talked about, shared and reach a wide audience. Not only does this impact the brands’ reach but demonstrates a sense of leadership in the space that separates one brand from its competitors. One wonderful example of this tactic is from the aggressive and edgy energy drink, Red Bull. From Business2Community: Did you miss the wildly successful Red Bull Stratos campaign that ejected a man from space, and resulted in more than three million tweets, an estimated 820,000 pieces of positive media and user-generated content for the brand, and 61.6 million impressions generated across social channels? Now that’s story telling.  Red Bull did not publish a dull post but instead made the video/write-up worthwhile and interesting for the viewer. It was out of the ordinary and caused a reaction. What makes this specific example even more unique is that Red Bull executed a specific event, essentially a publicity stunt, to give itself something to talk about. This proves that in many cases, conversation does not just happen on its own - instead brands must make it happen. Still, these conversations make for effective brand to consumer interactions.