Content Or Conversation? Ask Bill Gates

In a 1996 essay, Bill Gates wrote, “Content is king” (Bailey, 2010). Since then, that phrase has been repeated by many, and marketers have used it as a rallying cry for the superiority of content marketing strategies. The theory is if you have valuable content, it will drive consumers to visit your online properties. You will brand yourself an authority and a resource, and when consumers want to buy, they will purchase from you. That’s the theory.

On the other side, there are marketers who insist that conversation is king. Their doctrine is it is all about building relationships and bringing corporations into a more personal alliance with consumers through inducing conversations.

It is worth noting that Gates wrote that phrase long before Web 2.0, and years before social media was part of the Internet. While in the same essay Gates predicted that the amount of information on the Internet will become enormous, (ibid., 2010) he also knew that reading content via the personal computer as opposed to a paper format would necessitate greater interaction between the content creator and the audience.

If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters-to-the-editor pages of print magazines (Bailey, 2010, para.13).

Gates knew over 16 years ago that what people would eventually demand is not just content, but interaction. Well, we have arrived at that point and in most instances, content alone will no longer drive traffic. It is a good start, but with the explosion of good material that is now available online, the differentiating factor for many users is the quality of interaction, the conversation, vis-a-vis, the relationships they can build with the company and other users.  

As if the rabid rise in social media networks were not enough to demonstrate that conversation is essential to any marketing effort, one study published in 2010 in the Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management examined three typologies of content to determine which best facilitated ongoing relationships between businesses and consumers.

The study examined 100 blog posts across 10 Fortune 500 corporate blogs. They identified three types of content typologies, "organizational, promotional and relational" (Ahuja & Medury, 2010). Organizational topics covered things like the company's growth and achievements, social responsibility initiatives, employee experiences, event participation, etc. Promotional subjects were all things sales related and responses to product-related grievances. Relational content was posts soliciting feedback and addressing consumer worries. These addressed controversies or rumors about the organization, brand, product or service (ibid., 2010).

When they measured both the quantity and quality of consumer responses across all three typologies, the relational blogs were by far the content that achieved the strongest consumer engagement.

So in the debate over which is the more effective marketing strategy—content or conversation, the answer is neither and both. Content that spurs conversation is the most powerful marketing strategy and the marketer who skillfully employs content to generate conversation will likely survive to see the next technology revolution.

References

Ahuja, V., & Medury, Y. (2010). Corporate blogs as e-CRM tools – Building consumer engagement through content management. Journal Of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 17(2), 91-105. doi:10.1057/dbm.2010.8. Retrieved through EBSCOhost database.

Bailey, C. (2010, May 31) Content is King by Bill Gates. Craigbailey.net. Retrieved from http://www.craigbailey.net/content-is-king-by-bill-gates/

Gates, B. (2001) Microsoft.com. Retrieved from http://www.craigbailey.net/content-is-king-by-bill-gates/