I just finished up reading Search Marketing Standard magazine (a great read by the way and I would recommend it to all my friends and colleagues); specifically a few articles/interviews about social media marketing. In an awesome interview with Cameron Olthuis about the State of Social Media Marketing, he talks about achieving front page placement on Digg and it’s affect on inbound links. He also talked about control (or lack thereof) when marketers engage with social media; as well as measuring social media. He made some really great points.

The other article I read was written by Chris Boggs called Is Social Media Marketing Finally Coming of Age? It was a great read as well. The topic of Digg and links also came up; and he also touched a little on social communities, bookmarking, etc.

I do understand the importance of SEO. After all, I have been an SEO practitioner for about ten years or so. It was my first love. I also understand the importance of making it convenient for users to add content/web page/video to their favorite social bookmarking site; and of course the ever-so-important concept of social media optimization which is essential in an integrated social media marketing campaign.

But what I find interesting is that not once were conversations referred to in the articles. In fact, I read many blogs that revolve around social media and rarely do they ever talk about engagement with users, conversations and user feedback. I believe that the true core to social media are conversations. Now, please don’t get me wrong. There are several social media distribution channels like Digg and StumbleUpon that can drive a lot of traffic to your (or a clients) web site; but what are marketers doing once they get there? Is it a one time transaction (conversion) or a long term-profitable-relationship (conversation)?

Last I heard, consumers don’t appreciate being marketing to anymore. They prefer to have a conversation; a two way conversation, indeed. Bill cited a great case study from Charlene Li (Forrester Research) Facebook marketing requires communicating, not advertising that touches on this exact subject.

The reality is that social media means a lot of different things to a lot of different people; and it’s my guess that there will always be disagreements on its definition. In my opinion and however it’s defined, I believe that the true essence of social media revolves around conversations.

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