Research: value of letting customers take conversation control

June 12th, 2007 Lois Kelly Posted in Communities, Conversational Marketing, Research, Social media strategy |

It’s hard for marketers and PR professionals to let go of trying to control the message and what customers say. But new research from Communispace finds that ceding control and letting customers initiate and control the conversation in online communities results in valuable insights and brand engagement.

Based on analyzing activity in 84 online customer communities the study, Beyond the Other Box: Giving Customers an Independent Voice in Your Community, found that:

1. When customers initiate dialogue they end up saying and contributing more to a community. (vs. the company starting conversation threads about what they want to talk about)

2. The more that people feel like they own the community (vs. the sponsoring company) the more likely they are to talk with the company when the company asks a question or invites people to take a poll, upload videos related to the brand, etc.

My takeaway: if we really want to tap into our customers we should back off and let them own the community and talk about ideas that matter to them. Maybe we’ll learn that those ideas should matter to us too.

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