The PINTARGET Blog

I stopped broadcasting my blog posts to Twitter. Using the conversations that happen in Twitter or other social networks as a tool for promoting your own blog, site or company is a tricky thing. I realised I was learning that real-world lesson we learn as kids: keep interrupting a conversation with your own prepackaged blogs-of-wisdom and you will soon find the conversation dead.

Hmmm. Silly me for thinking online was different. I think I’m beginning to learn the difference between a conversation and a road.

Road West by Barjack

In all the great empires and civilisations of world history, roads were the key to their strength. The ability to communicate an order, marshal resources and move troops better than the enemy was critical in their success. Marketing and PR have been attentive students.

The focus of Promotion as we know it today seems to be hell bent on making roads not conversations: broadcast messages in high volume, all over the place, dangle sexy offers, erect big signs and drive people all the way to the checkout.

I look back over the last few months since launching Pintarget and this blog and realise this was the same mindset I followed when thinking about generating traffic:

Road.

Straight.

Wide.

Build it.

Link different places together.

TRAFFIC!

But building roads is so much easier, faster and cheaper for us goal-focused, business-types. Why shouldn’t marketing, PR, advertising, government, customer services, complaints, new business, charities, recruitment, product development, design…stick to building roads? Why bother with customer conversations? What is a conversation anyway?

Conversations don’t have a predetermined destination. Conversations can’t be controlled. Conversations can take you through pleasant, light and breezy places as well as dark, noisey and frightening places. I’m starting to learn that roads and conversations don’t mix; especially in the context of commerce, brands, promotion, launches and customers. I’m also starting to see more and more people demand conversations, not roads.

I try and read and follow much of what Chris Brogan talks about. Read this post and try and tell me roads are the future. Conversations are more powerful and more enabling than a road. They draw people in. They give us the power to convene our friends and supporters. They give us constant feedback.

I really want to hear from other people: what great conversations have inspired you or made you feel important? I’m talking about conversations with a commercial focus: with a company or a store, over some research, advertising campaign, a recent purchase or some feedback or complaint. When was it? With whom? Why was it different? Perhaps it set the gold standard for you and every commercial transaction will be forever judged against this? Why, what made it so?

I’ve put down my digger and fired the foreman. Guess I’m about to find out what all this means when running a young company.

OK, no more ‘road’ analogies.

Update on 18 November: 2 slideshows about social media and conversations I found interesting.