Conversation or Content. Who Rules the Internet?

  • 1 min read

After doing some research for a speaking engagement, I ran across this quote by Cory Doctorow from BoingBoing:

“Content isn’t king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you would choose your friends…. If you chose your movies, we would call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.”

It made me think hard about my opinions on content and and what… ultimately… is more important: content or conversation? There are many times when the ideas surrounding “conversation” is missed by many Internet and social media users. It is excellent if you are at the top of Google search for your keywords but what happens when the potential customer clicks through to your site?

Are you selling them? Or did you just waste a PPC campaign? Better yet, did you just waste all the sweat, tears, and years of writing on your blog?

The question you should be asking yourself is this…

Do you have the necessary tools and systems in place to create conversations with the users influenced by your search ranking? Is it even necessary? Absolutely it is necessary. We are seeing an overwhelming demand for the businesses of the world to call consumers… PEOPLE… and not the other way around.

Customers are people first and buyers second. It is important to create excellent content in order to push the conversation but… Conversation leads to Relationships. Relationships lead to the strengthening of the brand (personal or corporate). A strong personal brand leads to acquisition. Acquisition leads to financial gain and a successful company.

Maybe the question should be focused in a different way. Which comes first? Conversation or content. Do they work hand in hand? How do they apply to the idea of personal branding?

What do you think? Is content king or did conversation just take the throne?

Picture of Kyle Lacy

Kyle Lacy

Kyle Lacy writes a regular blog at KyleLacy.com and is founder and CEO of Brandswag, a social media strategy and training company. His blog has been featured on Wall Street Journal’s website and Read Write Web’s daily blog journal. Recently, Kyle was voted as one of the top 150 social media blogs in the world (on two websites), and produces regular keynote speeches across the Midwest. He also just finished writing Twitter Marketing for Dummies by Wiley Publishing.

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

The people who help us become who we want to be often aren’t just the ones who love us exactly as we are, but the ones who treat us, day after day, as the person we’re quietly trying to become — until one afternoon we catch ourselves already doing the thing we thought we’d never manage

The people who help us become who we want to be often aren’t just the ones who love us exactly as we are, but the ones who treat us, day after day, as the person we’re quietly trying to become — until one afternoon we catch ourselves already doing the thing we thought we’d never manage

The Vessel
The advice to let the anger out goes back more than a century — but when researchers gave angry people a punching bag, the ones told to picture the person who had enraged them walked away angrier than the people who just sat quietly for two minutes, doing nothing at all

The advice to let the anger out goes back more than a century — but when researchers gave angry people a punching bag, the ones told to picture the person who had enraged them walked away angrier than the people who just sat quietly for two minutes, doing nothing at all

The Vessel
To the parent who keeps every drawing, every report card, and every handprint

To the parent who keeps every drawing, every report card, and every handprint

Global English Editing
Psychology helps explain why adults who feel lonely in a full room aren’t ungrateful, they may be surrounded by people who know their name but not a single thing that actually matters to them

Psychology helps explain why adults who feel lonely in a full room aren’t ungrateful, they may be surrounded by people who know their name but not a single thing that actually matters to them

Global English Editing
Quote by Carl Jung: Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself

Quote by Carl Jung: Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself

Global English Editing
People who stay genuinely fit as they age may not be the ones with the best genetics or the most discipline — they may be the ones who decided movement was about staying in a life they wanted to keep living

People who stay genuinely fit as they age may not be the ones with the best genetics or the most discipline — they may be the ones who decided movement was about staying in a life they wanted to keep living

Global English Editing
Load more
CATEGORIES
Explore