The marketing landscape is an arena where individuals and brands must realize that consumers lack confidence in advertising. Audiences have a knack for recognizing pitches and sales tactics aimed at bottom line growth. Markets are bombarded with messaging from all sides aimed at their wallets and attention leading to reluctance over purchase intent and a lack of authenticity. Chris Brogan and Julien Smith call this a trust deficit.

The most successful companies are those who engage in relevant conversations and create experiences that resonate with changing consumer tastes. Trust is a glue that helps capture attention, build advocacy, and establish repeat business. People are the core of business.

The Web has changed to be more humanized, and the people who will succeed in understanding this and using the Web to build businesses are called Trust Agents.

The United States is getting younger thanks in large part to the growth of minorities who not only overindex in technology adoption but serve as pioneers and mainstays in social media activity. The rising influx of digital natives and social media butterflies has created an atmosphere of marketing and communications where technological aptitude and digital savvy separate the haves from the have nots.

Likewise, there are people out there right now working to understand these new technologies and learning everything about how to use them--from etiquette to audience building and beyond.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing many marketers and small business owners is the reluctance to grasp the potential and legitimate value found in social media strategy. Time and significant effort are valid reasons for apprehension but this does not slow down the movers and shakers in new media from capturing attention, maximizing opportunities, and establishing a lasting presence.

Like your kids, they know more about technology, and maybe even more about people, than you do; and that makes them very powerful.

The perks of conversation are too few and far in between. We must remedy the situation by maintaining a constant effort to keep our fans and followers interested. Recency breeds reaction...and our focus as content creators should always be on keeping things fresh. It's good to be so fresh and so clean that our audience keeps coming back for more.

Consistency matters in the chase for relevance.

A small but strong reminder as we continue our social media journey.

Popularity is a tricky thing. It's measure can reside with the masses or take up camp in the mind of an individual striving to capture attention and generate interest. In the journey towards validation, we often mistake a good sized crowd for an engaged audience. In the world of social media, being present matters over presence.

There is no engagement in numbers. Data might paint a nice picture and speak to quantity but quality interactions and true conversation take a crowd from mass to measurable impact.

Let's not strive for numbers but rather value-added interaction.

This is where true synergy lies.

• Social media is not a catch all but rather a powerful extension of Marketing and Public Relations.
• Being conversational is still an element of driving authentic trust and affinity.
• Offering something of value is the most important dynamic regardless of channel.

What do Kobe Bryant, Jay Baer, and Coca-Cola have in common?

They dominate their industries with style, grace, and precision that simply outshines their competition. On one hand we have an athlete who shoots the rock with such deadly accuracy that time and time again leaves the competition asking themselves "what just happened?" and on the other a similarly talented artist who takes his athletic prowess to the world of new media striking up informational slam dunks of social media strategy.

Both these individuals are at the top of their game on a consistent basis much like Coca-Cola which always seems to capture audience attention and generate renewed interest.

However, these three have much more in common than industry leading ability. Kobe, Jay, and Coca-Cola are storytellers. 

They understand the importance of offering audience value and ensure that their every step, post, and branding measures up to the expectations of their fan base.

They are storytellers who make it easy for others to share their story.

They're not selling shoes, books, or beverages...no...they have moved past that arena and are telling stories that capture audience attention and generate a groundswell of conversation.

Connections keep the stream flowing and the water boiling. Our audience is an important stakeholder in our quest to cook up the perfect social media feast.

Content channeled through connections leads to amplification.

Get out there and connect!

However, some still forget about the ultimate shortcut to engagement and relevance.

Content.

Quality content can be the key that unlocks new doors of opportunity and influence.

Content matters.

These days, I get a lot of questions about why I use twitter. It's a popular question and surprising considering how mainstream the micro-blogging service is becoming. It seems as though many individuals, brands, and organizations are jumping on the bandwagon. Recent reports show that Twitter has actually surpassed MySpace in terms of traffic.

Validation? Sure sounds like it.

Here are my top five reasons for using Twitter:

5. I can follow my interests.

4. The content stream is ongoing.

3. Oftentimes, the first source for important news updates.

2. Participation is easy and fun!

1. Ability to network.

The good news...is that there's plenty of room for participation on the level of "creators".

Our environment is ripe with information, updates, entertainment, and a variety of media. Emotions lead to a strong desire to express ourselves. Oftentimes, we run to the internet to stake our claim, make our case, or just plain vent without considering the potential outcome of our digital rants.

We tend to forget that the internet is a massive vault in which our ideas, expressions, thoughts, and opinions are easily stored but not easily removed. The tasks involved with erasing a tweet, removing a blog post, or shutting down a website can be numerous and challenging making it important for us as content producers and social media participants to remember what we publish will make its way to the visual aperture of today's audiences. It is almost impossible to avoid the trap of disregard in the online arena.

Before you tweet...blog...or comment...think twice.

Kind of like measuring twice before you cut that last piece of lavish mahogany.

Communication is an integral component of building rewarding relationships. Paul Ford, a Project Manager for Digital Marketing agencies in London, provides us with some keen insight into the communication arena and context of shared meaning.

If communication is to involve shared meaning, five principles must exist to create variables to the context of communication. These are: transaction; interaction; irreversible and unrepeatable; culture-specific; and content and relationships.

1. Communication is a transactional process: a transaction is a business or activity that is carried through to settlement. It is a continuous process where elements are constantly changing. Sometimes, it can appear to be going around in circles. During conversation, each party requires a response after talking, and the conversation only exists as long as these transactions take place.

2. Communication is an interactional process: interaction must occur for communication to exist. Interaction can also include no interaction. If the second party does not respond to the first party’s statement, interaction has still taken place. There may be several meanings to this. The second party may not have heard the first party, or the second party may be deliberately not answering. Further transactions are required to establish the meaning of the initial interaction.

3. Communication is an irreversible and unrepeatable process: every communication is a unique event. It can be repeated later, but not exactly. Some elements will change, possibly voice tone, volume or expression. An actor might repeat the same lines in a play for many years, but some performances will stand out more than others. In that case, the actor’s attitude and mood on any given night can affect the communication. The performance of the other actors will also be an important element that is constantly changing every time the play is performed.

4. Communication is a culture-specific process: different cultures interpret the same communication message in different ways. In some cultures, it is considered inappropriate to look into someone’s eyes when speaking with them, whereas in other cultures it is considered to be a sign of openness and honesty. A hand gesture that is a sign of approval in one culture, may be an insult in another culture.

5. Communication is about content and relationships: messages in communication may have multiple meanings. Both the spoken word and the written word can have hidden meanings. This is sometimes referred to as “reading between the lines”. The relationship between the people communicating can alter the shared meaning. The words “I love you” spoken between two lovers has a different meaning than if spoken between a parent and a child.

Source: http://paulford.com/shared-meaning-and-the-communication-process/