Why content and conversation are not mutually exclusive in social media

As marketers, we are always searching for the winning recipe that produces social media marketing success. And the debate commonly turns to one important question: Do we concentrate on content or conversation? Which will be the catalyst in our social media campaign? To be honest, there is no simple answer to this question. There is no one ingredient that turns your campaign from stagnant to stellar. The truth is, content and conversation are not mutually exclusive. In order to make a social campaign successful, content and conversation must rely on one another to drive success. Without good content, your readers will have nothing to talk about. Without conversation your content will not get the exposure it needs. There are strong arguments to be made for both content and conversation. However, in this context, I see no opportunity to pick one over the other, which leads me to believe, that both are an integral part of any social media marketing campaign. Below I will explain content and conversation in terms of their dependency on each other.

An article from the Washington Post surveyed several business owners and asked them which social media posts succeeded at creating the most response from readers. For the most part, their answers suggested a combination of content and conversation driven posts. Anthony Saladino, CEO of a Kitchen Remodeling business, remarked that his most shared posts consisted of detailed guides and renovation reports that were rich in content. Aaron Schwartz, founder of a watch company, said his most popular posts were ones that solicited a direct response from readers. They posted creative questions like, “what would you name this model of watch?”

Now, from here, the debate can go in a lot of different directions. How does the type of industry affect the importance of content vs. conversation? Does great content go beyond generating strictly “shares” to comments, replies etc? However, at the root of this argument we are beginning to see how content and conversation can produce the best results when they work together. Schwartz’s posts weren’t effective simply because they were presented in the form of a question, they were great because they were clever, and relevant to the brand. If one were to produce content with the sole purpose of creating a conversation you are threatening the continued health of your brand.

For example, let’s say I ran a skateboard shop, and I wanted to generate more engagement with my followers on our blog. I decided to start posting about hot button pop culture issues. People gobble this kind of stuff up and will most likely talk about it. However, what is this kind of conversation doing for your skateboard brand? At the end of the day, you have created buzz, but that buzz hasn’t contributed to the strengthening of your brand.

Everyday we see wonderful examples of social media campaigns that have utilized both content and conversation to drive their campaigns. Old Spice has succeeded at many things, but especially their ability to create entertaining content and get people talking in unique ways. In 2010, Old Spice released a series of well written response videos to celebrities via Twitter. These videos were well produced for comedic value (content), and presented in a manner that sparked a great deal of consumer response (they were themselves responses) (Catacchio, 2010).

Khazan, O. (2012). What type of content should you put on social media channels? Retrieved 11 November 2013 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-small-business/post/what-type-of-content-should-you-put-on-social-media-channels/2012/04/20/gIQA2OXwZT_blog.html

Catacchio, C. (2010). Shirtless Old Spice guy replies on Twitter with hilarious personalized videos Retrieved 11 November 2013 from http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/07/13/shirtless-old-spice-guy-replies-on-twitter-with-hilarious-personalized-videos/