Conversation Marketing

Marketers are finding themselves in an increasingly frantic race to get people talking about their brands. Consumer can be any number of things—sometimes all at once. And that fact is driving marketers, businesspeople, and brand managers crazy. Consumers are producers, users, participants, members of niche communities, or even critics capable of effectively mobilizing others. The article proposes marketers become "conversation architects." Communities are forming around popular social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Twitter—the. These platforms facilitate conversation and this is where marketers should begin their conversations about products or organizations. Marketers, businesses, and designers must have an intimate understanding of how these platforms are evolving and influencing human behavior. There has to be an in-depth understanding of why some us of love to incorporate these services in our digital lives. They need to be taken seriously in this evolving world.

The "Twitter" Does What?

The "twitter" has many critics but this article offers support to the "twitter" and its usefulness. "Twitter" is an online community available at anytime anywhere. This article argues that there are benefits to the "twitter." It can make existing professional relationships stronger and more intimate. It allows people to connect and stay in touch without actually talking to one another. The "twitter" gets questions answered from a network of people in a non-intrusive way. It also expands your network and allows for business contacts. It can promote blogs and increase awareness and support of issues and events. It also allows for family and friends to coordinate availability, so that you don't bother or interrupt anyone.

While this article is overtly positive, many believe that the "twitter" communities will soon be non-existent to exist because every convenience they offer can be addressed by other means. Also with few people adopting the "twitter" lifestyle the communities are less effective because they need people watching and participating to garner great effects and networking.

Google it.

Google Inc. has established a new way in researching consumers and tailoring the advertising to them. They are controlling which television ads viewers see and changing them to cconsumers' interests.The Mountain View, Calif., company (Google) has made the highly profitable Internet model of search advertising more profitable. They are selling ads targeted directly at consumers based on the terms they enter into Web search engines. This is innovative and in some ways disturbing idea because it shows the lengths businesses will go to sell people there products. Google has even begun a test run tailored TV commercials to cable subscribers in Concord, Calif., people the company is familiar with. This could also be the beginning of a new way of doing business, maybe even help the consumer find and filter messages they have interest or no interest in.

Starbucks is running out of “Caffeine”

The big chain has reported that by expanding so feverishly and losing the exclusiveness they once had, they have actually accused their brand to lose value and become commercialized. This is allowing competition to really compete, even chains like McDonalds that aren’t in the business of making coffee but posing a threat to the large chain. The spokesperson for Starbucks said regarding expansion, “in retrospect, have (led) to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand,". But the future goals of Starbucks are articulated to keep expanding, “Starbucks to become one of the world's most recognized brands, with 40,000 locations around the globe, or more than triple its current count of about 13,000. But to do that, Starbucks must improve its efficiencies and make other changes that threaten to erode the virtues that made it so successful -- which in turn could jeopardize its ability to charge premium prices.” It will be interesting to see what Starbucks does to improve its image, and push for quality, while still expanding in numbers.

A Blog that Everyone Should Read #2

I was reading PR Blog News and another useful blog written by a corporate executive was being introduced.


Fred Wilson is a venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures in New York. Unlike the other corporate blog Marriott on the move, the A VC is a personal shared journal full of life experiences, photos of his daughters playing basketball, and wonderful anecdotes about business. However, you can earn a lot from Wilson about the monetization of blogs, social media, new tech gadgetry, and the companies he is excited by and investing in. The design of the blog is simple but there are plenty of widgets on display, gadgets being discussed, videos being shared, and useful intelligence bandied about.

A blog that everyone should read

There are so many junk blogs out there full of irrelevant information and pointless jabber. Sometimes, you will get annoyed by those blogs. Then I read a post from PR Blog News introducing the blog of Bill Marriott , "Marriott on the move." It stated that Bill Marriott's blog "make absolute sense and is truly representative of the power and and reach and beauty of communication through the Internet."

Bill Marriott, Chairman and CEO of Marriott International, is on a journey and he is writing down everything he experienced throughout the trip. The blog is very informational.

It is always good to read something written by a successful person because you can definitely learn something from him/her.