Is it really any wonder that in a medium invented by self proclaimed 'geeks' the application of words like 'social' and 'conversation' may not be quite right.

Okay, I will say from the start that this post is something of a rant. If you’re not up for a rant, just blow this one off completely.

Still here? Okay, here we go…

Since I was a junior art director in advertising I’ve listened to people in marketing say we can’t treat the customer like they’re stupid. Usually this has been used to defend some creative concept when an account guy inevitably says, “I’m not sure the customer will ‘get it’.”

Generally I agree with the statement. People aren’t stupid. I’ve always countered that they are, however, really busy and don’t have the time or inclination to unravel some obtuse and overly clever creative ‘concept’ when the payoff is only a solicitation for a sale. In fact, I think people are incredibly bright and more or less understand all the tricks of the trade in the advertising industry. We’ve all grown up being marketed to.

Much in marketing being cyclical, I now see a re-skinned version of this general misunderstanding of the customer’s mind when the topic of ‘Conversation Marketing’ comes up. I recently looked through yet another deck by yet another ‘digital agency’ explaining how advertising was dead, the paradigm had shifted (always a suspect phrase) and that today it was was all about conversations between brands and customers. Conversation begets conversion or so the story goes.

This sort of stuff is being sold all over Madison avenue and on all of its side streets. My question is, do we really think people are stupid? Do we really think they believe they’ll have, expect to have, or even actually want, a conversation with a brand?

First, let’s look at the simple dynamics of conversation. If I have 10 friends I can carry on meaningful conversations with all of them. If I have 100 friends this becomes much harder. One person talking to 100 is usually called a lecture or presentation, not a conversation. Even when the Q&A comes around, you’ll notice that the conversation is between the presenter and one or two people at a time – always at the exclusion of everyone in the room (they all become observers eavesdropping). This is the reality of conversations. They can’t be done en mass pretty much by definition.

In fact, when a Facebook user has 100, 200, 300 friends, many of those friends get only dribs and drabs of information in the form of updates. They miss a lot of these updates because 300 people sending out updates means no single person’s update is on screen (and in mind) for very long. If every single advertisement’s impact becomes weaker because there are too many of them altogether; shouldn’t this logic also apply to having hundreds or friends or followers?

By the time I get to 1000 friends I do not have conversations at all, I am basically broadcasting. Following Ashton Kutcher on Twitter does not make you his friend any more than Tom from MySpace was your friend the day you joined that site. Ashton Kutcher is broadcasting to people interested in receiving his broadcasts. This is not a conversation its a digital megaphone. In fact, even if Ashton replies to a Tweet you make to him, its no more a conversation than if he stops on the red carpet to sign your autograph book. He is famous. You are not. He is broadcasting. You are tuning in.

Fame and conversation are inversely proportionate. As a fanbase grows the intimacy of the conversation necessarily shrinks because a celebrity must attend to the whole fanbase to maintain it and doing so means broad messages. So it is with brands.

This line of thinking is counter-cultural to the ethos of social media in the same way most bulk emails from friends start with, “Sorry for the bulk email but…” No one working in social media seems to want to acknowledge that as it’s growing its taking on more and more characteristics of broadcast media – at least insofar as commercial applications are concerned.

As a snarky aside it’s also worth noting here that the pioneers of the Internet have long been stereotyped as anti-social computer geeks. Does anyone else find it ironic that these same, often self-proclaimed shut-ins are now the primary definers of terms like ‘social’ and ‘conversation’? That’s like men dispensing pregnancy advice.

Boil it all down and ‘brand conversations’ quite simply aren’t conversations at all. The CEO of Zappos is signing autographs through Twitter not having conversations.  He is broadcasting and tens of thousands of people are tuning into his channel because he is a celebrity or sorts. There’s nothing wrong with this, but let’s not confuse it with conversation. What he’s doing is what Ashton Kutcher is doing; broadcasting through a smaller more customized distribution channel. Viewed as commercials, Tony Hsieh is sending 140 character Zappos brand ads out with each tweet. He is, in effect, a spokesman for his own company the way Dave Thomas (the founder of Wendy’s) and Frank Purdue were. In the case of the latter, they had to pay for expensive air time to personify their company. Zappos CEO does it for free on Twitter (though admittedly with far narrower reach than national TV used to offer).

[It's also worth noting here that not all CEO's are cut out for the spokesperson role even if Twitter accounts make it cheaper to try this tactic out.]

The point is, no one expects that following Ashton or Zappos CEO on Twitter makes them friends. No one expects that reviewing a product on Amazon or voting for a video on some promotional site makes them part of a ‘community’. No one, that is, except marketers in the echo chamber of their social media strategy sessions.

Communities form around personal interests, not technological features like rating, voting, friending, following or reviewing. Someone writing a book review on Amazon is not a member of the Amazon community. In fact, chances are they are a member of a community as defined by the topic of the book. Whether that community has self-organized is another matter.

If anything, the original holy grail of advertising – that Utopian day when people would actively seek out and sign up for advertising – has finally come. Viewed as a voluntary enrollment in branded messaging, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are all examples of people choosing to get advertised to – whether its Ashton’s musings or Dell’s Outlet. That’s terrific news of course, but its not a conversation.

And here’s why recognizing this distinction is very important.

In a conversation between people, the benefit to the participants is different than what is sought by following a celebrity which is in turn different than what is sought by following a brand.

When someone decides to be Ashton Kutcher’s follower on Twitter, they want a voyeuristic glimpse into his life. It’s a facsimile of what knowing him might be like, but only the stalkers and psychos think being an Ashton follower on Twitter means Ashton actually knows (or cares) that they exist.

When someone signs up to follow Apple or Zappos or Harley or BMW or Trader Joes, they are interested in something else. They want something from the brand. This is the same something people have always wanted from brands, it’s just being served up through different channels. This something is the proverbial “What’s in it for me?” that is, and remains, the essence of Marketing 101. What that is varies – from promotions and deals to bragging rights to early sneak peaks to validation of how someone sees themselves. (Narcissism – not aspiration – is an often under-recognized driver in many purchase decisions). However it is not the desire to have a personal relationship with the brand.

So can we please put this delusional ‘conversation’ terminology away?

The syntax of social media, with is conversations and friending, was invented while the technology itself was being invented, and used, by individual people (the geeks mentioned above) to talk to and friend each other (because geeks notoriously are better at interfacing through computer screens than face to face – I’m being snarky again, humor me).

Marketers have come in after the fact and co-opted the language or social media. However, words being powerful in their ability to force assumptions, if marketers blindly apply the traditional definitions of words like ‘friend’ and ‘conversation’ to their craft they risk fooling themselves into thinking their customers really value their friendship and are seeking conversations. This sends companies off in all sorts of crazy, wasteful directions.

There is very little conversation marketing going on despite the books being printed, presentations being shown and blogs being commented on in the echo-chamber of social media. The reason is simple. It is impossible for most brands with more than a few dozen customers to carry on conversations in any meaningful way. What is going on is broadcast marketing and messaging using new channels which narrow slice audience groups, are highly user controlled, and require an even more disciplined focus on answering the one and only question customers really want answered, “What’s in it for me?” What social media have really done is raised customer expectations. They now expect a say in their experience with a brand. But this say is not a conversation either. It is the expectation that they will be heard, listened to, and catered toward – more like the relationship to a butler than a friend.

Keeping this in mind will provide clarity while you’re developing a ‘social media strategy’.