conversations are markets
February 2nd, 2010 • posts i've written
In 1999 Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger penned The Cluetrain Manifesto.
Of the 95 theses, the very first is perhaps the most striking, most quoted, and most resilient: markets are conversations.
Hard to disagree, especially these days, no?
These wise gents argued that brands had to learn how to speak human again – to do away with the smooth and overly charmed PR tongue and speak to people in a relevant and honest way. After all, markets are made up of human beings, not homogenous, zombie, consumer segments.
Then came the social media tsunami.
Now brands want to be your friends. They want to follow you. Remember kids, your local giant mega-corporation is just like you. Well… they’re hanging out in all of your favorite places and they’re trying ever so hard to look and talk just like you. They’re sorta like 21 Jump Street without Johnny Depp and with way more Richard Grieco.
The next lesson for brands is that conversations are markets.
Conversations are transactions of information. A conversation is a complex negotiation of valuable resources.
Brands have to come to understand how and why these conversational transactions take place.
When we rally for spreadable media over viral media, we’re arguing for brands to be more conscious of the conversational transaction taking place when someone decides to share something with a friend.
I trade you one form of social currency, a piece of information, for another: perhaps your attention, your affection, or acceptance into your peer group.
The intent of the Cluetrain Manifesto wasn’t to urge brands to invade more of our social places – it was to urge brands to behave more like humans.
In doing so, brands have entered a market in which they are often at a disadvantage.
Brands too often either choose to ignore or don’t bother to learn the rules of this market.
Brands rely on purchasing conversations to enter the market and never quit the addiction.
Brands, traditionally, have less to exchange in the gift economy. Messages are tightly controlled and metered; conversations on a 1:1 level are strictly ignored or even forbidden.
The era which is ending was an era where brands desperately needed the knowledge of the industrial marketplace – how products could be sourced, how delivery to the consumer could be made, how mass media could be purchased, and how masses of people could be influenced.
The era which is begininning is an era where brands desperately need the knowledge of the conversational marketplace – how information spreads, how information is valued, how the context of conversation affects the market, and how to create value in a networked system of people.
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Good stuff! I caught wind of this via my friend Paul McEnany…I think we may have him in common.
Keeping the conversation alive…