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The Conversation Maturity Model: From Listening to Leading in Social Media

BY JASON CORMIER

My last post revisited the "markets are conversations" principal. I proposed that companies/brands have been joining conversations in their industry, but selling themselves short if not working towards starting them.

As a framework to facilitate this discussion, addressing the progression and value of brands starting conversations, see the Conversation Maturity Model below:



From a social media strategy perspective, you should find this model fits well as part of, or along side, Forrester's POST (People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology) approach or even Room 214's PPLE Social Media Framework.

The Value of Starting Conversations
To keep this blog post digestible, I'll summarize the model by saying the ultimate value of starting conversations is in building and sustaining your brand as a leader.

Leadership, like almost everything that's enabled your company's success, must be earned. Each (maturity) level within the pyramid model is representative of where your brand may be in any given conversation about a product, service, industry, etc.

Of course, this is only a model. Naturally, activities associated within each of these levels are ideally taking place as more of a continuum to your social media / marketing initiatives.

The Conversation Continues
Although the concepts may be simple, there are plenty of reasons brands are not effectively starting conversations -- from incomplete strategies to limitations in technology. There is more to offer here in terms specifics on these limitations - and more importantly, solutions helping companies to address them... but this will need to be for another post. Happy Holidays everyone.

TAGS: CONVERSATION MATURITY MODEL • PPLE • POST • FORRESTER • ROOM 214 • SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY • STARTING CONVERSATIONS

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