The Conversation Group -- Reinventing the relationship between companies and their customers

“All businesses are media businesses, because whatever else they do, all business rely on the managing of information for two audiences—employees and the world.”
Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody
“…the new media are rewarding more participatory, more sincere, and less directive marketing styles than the old broadcast media rewarded.””
HBR September 2007 Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers
The role of media in the relationship between companies and their markets is changing. Where once publishers stood between, acting as a lens through which companies could be interpreted, now they stand to the side and amplify or ameliorate the conversations happening directly between people.

The Conversation Group can help your company manage a comprehensive approach to this new media landscape including:

Bought Media Purchasing access to markets will continue to be important for companies. But the way it is done will change. The media pyramid has been inverted. Instead of a small number of content choices, people now have an endless array of choices—where, when, and what people consume is entirely under their control. As a result, companies will have to earn attention instead of simply imposing their presence on markets. The Conversation Group can help design and manage your company’s bought media program to succeed under these new conditions.

Earned Media Chances are that people are already talking about your company or product online. But your company, at best, hasn’t been invited to join the conversation and, at worst, may be unwelcome. Traditionally Public Relations was a discipline which sought to manage and control a company’s message through influencing analysts and journalists. Media relations and analyst relations are still important, but now those journalists and analysts have a new place to go to find out about you. Instead of trying to “control” how a company is perceived, the role of the PR professional must be to facilitate transparent and open communications between a company’ employees and markets. Clay Shirky writes “we are all media outlets” to describe this new world in which every person can broadcast his own views, or re-broadcast other’s views. The Conversation Group can work with your company to earn a place in the conversation.

Owned Media Every company needs a content strategy whether it is about creation, aggregation, or collaboration, and is online-only or event-based. Google is the front page of the Internet and providing appropriate content is an important part of how you will be found. Content also creates opportunities to support a company’s market either directly through content related to the company’s products or services or indirectly when it serves the broader needs and interests of a community. The Conversation Group can develop and help execute the right content strategy for your company.