Social Media - Content vs. Conversation

The average person is exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, or advertisements every day. As a culture, we have become familiar with being exposed to the immense quantity of advertisements. The space has become increasingly cluttered, with consumers not consciously hearing brand messaging. In order to stand out from the crowd, advertisers have to go above and beyond with messaging and tactics to reach consumers and get them to notice the advertisements.  

The online space, and especially the social media space, has transformed how brands can reach consumers. Over the past few years, many people have chanted the mantra that “content is king” within the online space. But, is that really the case? The other side of the argument adamantly chants that content isn’t king, but conversation is. Cory Doctrow of BoingBoing states, “Content isn’t king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you would choose your friends…. If you chose your movies, we would call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.” (Lacy, 2010) So, what is the right answer? My thoughts are that both content and conversation are equally important and work in tandem in order to achieve the social media goals set forth by the brand.             

In my personal life, I interact with some of my favorite brands on social media on a daily basis. It is very important to me that I be a person first, and customer second. Norwegian Cruise Line, one of my favorite brands, is a brand that I feel strikes the balance between conversation and content very well in the social space. A dedicated team works to figure out what to “say” on the Facebook page, which can be anything from photos, videos, text, polls, and more. These things would fall into the “content” category.  All of these things are being pushed out and controlled by the organization, not by consumers. In essence, this is the advertising part of social media – brands can say whatever they want to their audience and have complete control over the what, when, and where.

However, what comes out of this content is hopefully engaging conversation. The content presented should be engaging enough to spark conversation, whether that is comments on the post or having consumers use hashtags or mentions of the brand in their posts to friends and followers. This is where the earned media comes in. These conversations are sometimes scary for brands to swallow since they are in essence losing some control, but they are ultimately more substantial in building longer-term relationships.

With such immense advertising clutter, consumers are increasingly relying on their peers for recommendations. This is why Facebook ads now show which friends of a user have liked the brand or voted on the poll. It is also why, when going to a brand’s Facebook page, a user can see which of their friends have liked the page and filter the page content to show only engagement with the brand by their friends. The conversation has become key for consumer influence and brand loyalty, but without engaging content these conversations would have little to no substance. This is why content and conversation are equally as important in achieving social media goals.

References:

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing.

MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved June 6, 2012 from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing/

Lacy, K. (2010, May 27). Conversation or content. Who rules the Internet? Personal

Branding Blog. Retrieved June 7, 2012, from http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/conversation-or-content-who-rules-the-internet/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king.

SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved June 6, 2012 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king