Chicken and the egg?
Tom Martin blew the lid off of this topic and I’m going to add my 2 cents. But let me ask 2 questions. Does content drive conversation? Does good content drive good conversation? The answer is yes and yes. Tom pissed off a bunch or people when he said that social media isn’t all about conversation and you know what? He’s right. Conversations are a derivative of social media. Conversations are not social media.
Some people think engagement for a brand has to revolve around the conversation-No… Conversations are derivatives of engagement. Conversations are the bi-product. If I had to choose how I was going to engage it would be built on great content across multiple platforms-that’s what’s going to create conversations.
Let me quote Tom:
The simple fact is that long-term success in the social space is about more than just being a great conversationalist. Especially when you’re looking at this from a brand perspective. According to numerous research studies, consumers choose to follow, fan and like brands in the social space primarily to get insider deals and to be exposed to cool content. If engagement or conversation is even mentioned, it’s very far down the list.
Why is this so shocking?
Direct Marketing Observations 
I couldn’t agree more!
“Does content drive conversation? Does good content drive good conversation? The answer is yes and yes. Tom pissed off a bunch or people when he said that social media isn’t all about conversation and you know what? He’s right.”
This basically sums it up for me. CONTENT is king, social media is just a channel to get the content out to the masses.
Marc
You know why it’s shocking… because it goes against the puritan roots of the social media movement. It’s capitalist thinking. But hey, that’s ok…. last time I checked, the companies with the checkbooks where in the commerce not conversation business.
Thanks for the hat tip my friend.
@TomMartin
@Tom You know how I find all the great people in our industry? and how they find me? Content….
@Abby Funny thing, When I worked on my first start-up content was king back then too, but they were trying to sell us the content…I’d say things have changed a little.
Content is critical TO conversation. Simplifying conversations as the by-product of engagement is not entirely true. Conversations are the building blocks of relationship development (i.e. engagement), and in just about every form of commerce, relationships result in higher profit, repeat business, and referrals.
“Some people think engagement for a brand has to revolve around the conversation-No…” Of course it need not be directly a conversation where people exchange their views or ideas in the same page instead they can spread the word by sharing on their own networks etc, refer to somebody else etc..but I believe that content is the core value to generate conversations or engagement.