Business Week introduced a concept in April of 2007 called the conversation economy. While we often talk about the experience economy, we thought Business Week’s article touches on an important part of providing experiences. Provide exceptional experiences and Word of Mouth will follow. Better experiences create opportunities for meaningful dialogues - and positive conversations about your tourism experiences.
Here is an excerpt from their article:
Marketers today find themselves in a frantic race to get people talking about their brands. Everyone wants to produce something “viral.” Call it the conversation economy. One of the engines driving online growth is the fact that communities are forming around popular social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Twitter and the rest. These platforms facilitate conversation, and markets are now conversations, as the Cluetrain Manifesto pointed out years ago. Conversation leads to relationships, which lead to affinity. Brand affinity, as companies like Harley-Davidson show, can cause communities to form around them. Thus, anyone who plays a role in branding needs to become a “conversation architect.” Marketers, businesses and designers need an intimate understanding of how these platforms are evolving and influencing human behavior. Marketers need an in-depth understanding of why so many people love to incorporate these services in their digital lives. Just as YouTube changed how we watch and share videos, some emerging media applications are changing how we interact with each other and with brands. That’s viral marketing. Today, we market to each other. Actually, we always have, but now we’re doing it in a more digitally connected way. When we find friends on a social network, we swap stories about products and services we like or dislike. We share knowledge and expertise. We define a new kind of currency, fueled by conversation and founded in meaningful relationships.
