Conversations Matter: A Unique Perspective on Social Media
April 30, 2008 8:13 am Social Media
Only two years ago, corporations were hesitant to ride on the new wave of communications. Launched yesterday, Conversations Matter is a blog that proves this trend has since changed. Michael Brito, social media marketing manager at Intel, saw a major gap that needed to be filled in the blogosphere. He noted the abundance of blogs written from consultants’ perspectives and identified a need to help educate professionals new to social media. Brito created Conversations Matter to engage a variety of audiences about the internal marketing process that happens at Fortune 500 corporations and facilitate the necessary conversations between companies and agencies. In an interview with Brito, he explains his vision and hopes for Conversations Matter.
What is Conversations Matter?
It’s a collaborative blog authored by in-house marketers who touch social media in some capacity. The contributors include Fortune 500 social media marketing visionaries like LaSandra Brill from Cisco, Tac Anderson from HP, Kelly Feller from Intel, Tom Diederich from Candince Design Systems, and Marc Levin (formerly at Yahoo!). We hope that this blog will provide a greater understanding to what corporations are tasked with when launching a social media campaign.
What inspired you to create this blog?
I felt that there is a lack of representation (or voice) in the internet today from in-house marketers who manage/execute and define social media strategy across an organization; similar to that of in-house SEO, which may be a future project as well. We want to share our knowledge with our readers. Quite honestly, there is nothing like this online today. It’s unique and provides a point of view that is not represented enough. We don’t just talk about social media. We live it everyday…all day and we are held accountable. Besides, if we don’t produce, we lose our jobs.
According to the “About” section, there are social media managers from Fortune 100 companies contributing to Conversations Matter. Tell me more about why you selected these individuals.
I think that those who work in big organizations have a unique perspective of the industry; and the variables associated with social media are not visible to agencies/consultants who normally write about this space. Examples of topics we will discuss are: legal repercussions, getting customer support involved, IT and the web infrastructure, accountability of results, and evangelizing social media; and also just to provide a different point of view of social media in general.
What is the main purpose of Conversations Matter and how do you hope to impact the readers?
Our purpose is not to define social media. Others in the industry have already done an exceptional job at that. Our main purpose is to help educate and inform other marketers about the challenges/opportunities/learning/best practices of driving social media from a corporate perspective. Long term, we would like to facilitate workshops, webinars and networking events.
As an in-house marketer, please give me a brief description of your day-to day activities
Let’s see, after my morning java boost (not the programming language), I usually log into my blog(s) to see if there is any activity. I then open Twhirl to see whose hoot’n and holler’n in Twitter; and then Facebook to check the feeds. I then open Outlook and start plugging away – emails, then conference calls, then more emails, then more conference calls. It’s a daily ritual for me but I love it.
How does your perception of social media strategies differ when working ‘from the inside’ as opposed to an agency? What are the advantages/disadvantages?
My perception (and speaking entirely for myself) is that many agencies (not all) approach social media from a promotional perspective (i.e. web traffic, links, rankings, downloads, Digg effect, etc.). Internally, we rarely ever talk about this; it’s more about asking ourselves, “How do we create, join and facilitate conversations using social media? How do we create value in these conversations? How do we empower brand ambassadors? How do we increase usage of our products/services?” The promotional element of social is indeed important but it’s not the end goal for social media. In other words, everything I have ever done in social media has resulted in a two – way interaction with our audience. On the other hand, we may very well use “promotional social media” tactics to help drive traffic to these conversations. There are no advantages/disadvantages to these perceptions as long as they are both used in defining a complete social media strategy.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I think the theme of the blog is definitely unique and I’m really looking forward to reading more posts!
April 30th, 2008 at 9:25 am
This is a really interesting concept for a SM blog. I’m sure that having the opportunity to learn how social media works ‘from the inside’ of a successful corporation is a valuable perspective. Thanks for sharing!
April 30th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Not a bad looking blog, with some interesting content too. May have to add that one to the ‘reader.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am
This new site ConversationsMatter.org, looks like a really interesting site. I’m very optimistic about the future of Social Media, and it’s new sites like these that help build Social Media stronger and reach wider masses.
Just this sentence alone makes me smile: “We hope that this blog will provide a greater understanding to what corporations are tasked with when launching a social media campaign.”
April 30th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Interesting interview. CM looks like a cool concept for a site.
Good luck to Michael Brito and all the rest of the team.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Great post, Reem! The concept seems promising - get a bunch of experienced people in the industry to blog about their marketing thoughts. The design is slick and easy on the eyes. I think what would personally interest me the most is to see them share reflections from past experiences at their companies. Obviously due to legal reasons they probably can’t be super specific, but it would be interesting to hear more about how social media is perceived in the corporate world. To an extent (in the VERY short time since they’ve launched) they’ve already been doing this but I hope to see more juicy details in the future.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Seeing social media from a holistic point of view is extremely important in our industry. Cultures and focal points in agencies are very different from those found in corporations, so it is important to get both percepeticves.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
A thoughtful interview, Reem. It’s great to hear that people on the corporate end are actively trying to ignite social media. Inspiring (cue: Rocky theme song.)
April 30th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Great interview. I (along with most people, I’d venture) sometimes lose track of the value of the “conversation” when trying so hard to construct soapboxes/platforms/networks/profiles so that people can just engage at all.
I can’t imagine having to enable these processes from within a huge organization and expect to get the resources that are sometimes required. How do you convey the value of social media participation in the ROI-driven boardrooms of advisory boards and executives who only care about the bottom line? In my experience, it’s requires daily defense that can quickly become exhausting.
For me, that last question/answer was the most meaningful:
“The promotional element of social [media] is indeed important but it’s not the end goal for social media. In other words, everything I have ever done in social media has resulted in a two – way interaction with our audience.”
That’s fantastic. Coming from a marketer who knows where to put his efforts, I really do hope the blog gets the traction it deserves.
Way to be on top of it Reem!
April 30th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Great new idea for a social media site, it is true that most companies/people give you a quizzical look when you tell them social media can be valuable to their business.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Though the concept of Conversations Matter is certainly unique, i wonder if it’s different enough to really stand out in the increasingly crowded social media scene.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:31 am
It will be interesting to follow this blog because it’s clear the people behind it are talented and worth listening to.
I haven’t been directly in the corporate environment for a few years now, but I think there are a lot of issues and obstacles social media presents, not just to the executive level crowd, but more importantly to middle managers and project teams tasked with driving their own initiatives, projects and results.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:21 am
“We don’t just talk about social media. We live it everyday…all day and we are held accountable.” –> interesting to see such devotion, that is why Social Media has a bright future.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:25 am
Great. You have to keep it going.Social media has a number of characteristics that make it fundamentally different from traditional media such as newspapers, television, books, and radio. Primarily, social media depends on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words builds shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit.
Social media utilities create opportunities for the use of both inductive and deductive logos by its users. Claims or warrants are quickly transitioned into generalizations due to the manner in which shared statements are posted and viewed by all. The speed of communication, breadth, and depth, and ability to see how the words build a case solicits the use of rhetoric. Induction is frequently used as a means to validate or authenticate different user’s statement, and words. Rhetoric is an important part of today’s language in social media.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Great interview…it is good to get the reminder that one of the most valuable aspects of social media is conversation and what you can learn from the people that you meet, as well as remembering to give back to new people and teach them better ways to participate and add value to a community.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
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