Yes. Brands are about voice, value & points of view.

Five Years after Golden Rules of Conversational Media, an Addendum

By John Battelle 

It’s illuminating to remember that five years ago, Twitter was three months old, and Facebook had just opened to non-students. Neither company had a business model. Oh, and Digg was considered the pre-eminent social news service.

Over the next half-decade, of course, Twitter and Facebook have become huge forces, driving the rise of what I then called “conversational media” as opposed to “packaged-goods media,” where marketers just send a message to consumers.

I laid out five “golden rules” of this new media in several blog posts, and over the years, I’ve come to believe that it comes in two distinct flavors: independent and dependent.

“Dependent web” platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Yahoo are where people go to discover and share new content. Independent sites are the millions of blogs, community and service sites where passionate individuals “hang out” with like-minded folks. This is where shared content is often created.

Marketers need to play in both spheres to effectively build their brands. They need to get past a one-size-fits-all approach to media — the web ain’t TV. Dictating a message to your audience is no longer acceptable. Consumers online expect dialogue, so pairing your brand with relevant and passion-driven topics is one of the best ways to ensure that you are engaged with key audiences.

Take L’Oreal, for example (an FM client), which is partnering with the independent web to create great content for its Makeup.com site while building an audience for that content through channels including Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. This combined approach is essential, because while it’s easier than ever for a brand to be a publisher, there has to be a both great content and great publishing practices for a marketing campaign to build audience.

This leads to my sixth and latest Golden Rule of Conversational Media, which I have elevated to stand with the original five from 2006: All brands are publishers.

Given that brands are all about voice, meaning, values and point of view, having the skills of a conversational publisher is critical to success. It’s not enough to buy engagement ads, have a Facebook page, or man a Twitter handle. You also need to add value to the independent web, so you have things to share on those dependent web services and platforms.

There are many ways to ensure that brands are deeply involved in the conversations that matter. My advice here is simple:

• Choose media partners who are native to the conversational web, understand a marketer’s needs, and have a track record of scale, quality, safety, engagement and proven ROI.
• Work with those partners to figure out what you want to say, how you’ll say it and who’s listening. Change and adapt that approach as you learn what works, and as your marketing goals and messages evolve. Sites such as American Express’ Open Forum, for example, have a high percentage of return visitors because they are built as ongoing services with new and useful content every day.

Of course, for brands to be effective, they also need to ensure that they continue to follow the first five Golden Rules of publishing.

• Conversation over dictation. Instead of delivering a message to consumers, have a discussion with them. Join and start conversations.
• Platform over distribution. What matters is how you use a platform to create effective interaction with customers.
• Service over product. In conversation marketing, you’re providing a service, a continuing dialogue whose course through the Web is unknown. The more value it adds to the ecosystem, the more it will be shared, amplified and celebrated.
• Iteration over perfection. Good first drafts and speedy responses to consumer dialog will always trump lawyered corporate speak.
• Engagement over consumption. Simple consumption isn’t very interesting — what’s important is the context of that consumption, and action taken afterwards (liking, retweeting, sharing, linking, clicking). Become a trusted daily companion, not a once-a-year-during-the-Super-Bowl visitor.

Yes! A Must read for everyone looking to drive transformation.

By MARC ANDREESSEN

This week, Hewlett-Packard (where I am on the board) announced that it is exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software, where it sees better potential for growth. Meanwhile, Google plans to buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility. Both moves surprised the tech world. But both moves are also in line with a trend I’ve observed, one that makes me optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies, despite the recent turmoil in the stock market.

In short, software is eating the world.

More than 10 years after the peak of the 1990s dot-com bubble, a dozen or so new Internet companies like Facebook and Twitter are sparking controversy in Silicon Valley, due to their rapidly growing private market valuations, and even the occasional successful IPO. With scars from the heyday of Webvan and Pets.com still fresh in the investor psyche, people are asking, “Isn’t this just a dangerous new bubble?”

I, along with others, have been arguing the other side of the case. (I am co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz, which has invested in Facebook, Groupon, Skype, Twitter, Zynga, and Foursquare, among others. I am also personally an investor in LinkedIn.) We believe that many of the prominent new Internet companies are building real, high-growth, high-margin, highly defensible businesses.

Today’s stock market actually hates technology, as shown by all-time low price/earnings ratios for major public technology companies. Apple, for example, has a P/E ratio of around 15.2—about the same as the broader stock market, despite Apple’s immense profitability and dominant market position (Apple in the last couple weeks became the biggest company in America, judged by market capitalization, surpassing Exxon Mobil). And, perhaps most telling, you can’t have a bubble when people are constantly screaming “Bubble!”

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Social media is everywhere,

For all of our fascination with social media, I ask, have we become anti-social?

Sit in any office environment and what do you see?
People with their eyes glued to their computers. Alone.

Peer inside most cars on the road and who is there?
A driver. On the phone.

What forms of communication are most prevalent?
E-mail. Texts. Posts. Chat.

Sure, we’re communicating at record rates, but a critical form of communication is missing: Human interaction! You know, good old-fashioned face-to-face talking in real-time.

Nowhere is face-to-face communication more critical than when you are leading a change agenda. Whether it’s a new way, a new idea, or a new plan, experienced change agents practice a proven art form – socializing an idea. Remember that?

No matter how big or even how good your idea is, the best way to get people to try it, let alone adopt it, is to talk about it early and often. Successful change agents practice this anywhere and everywhere – in one-on-one or group settings, in a conference room, in the hallway, over coffee or during a meal.

There is extraordinary value gained when you make eye contact, witness body language, feel the emotion behind what’s said, and observe what’s not being said.

You’ve heard a lot about the transformation PTC was able to pull off in going from a once proud product company that had lost its way to a higher value thought leader in a new, more strategic space. The shift that needed to occur for PTC to have a chance to win was seismic. The forces of inertia holding the company back were formidable.

Sure, the ideas of what needed to be done and how to execute them were smart and powerful. But it was the practice of socializing the idea that won people over. Whether it was the early morning runs, one-on-one or small group meetings, lunches, dinners, or long flights, the art of socializing the new idea was practiced. Even large group settings weren’t one-way diatribes. They were either discussions or previews about early thinking, possibilities, and what might be. Dialogue was encouraged. Feedback was provided. Ideas were refined. So when the formalized agenda for the new way was officially launched, many people were not only on board, they felt as is they were already a part of the change culture simply because they had a voice in it.

Social media is fantastic for conveying information in new, exciting ways. But if you want to drive sustainable change, make time to have face-to-face chats, too. It will make all the difference.