Communication (push) versus dialogue (engagement)

Push marketing may have been dealt the death knell.

If dialogue and user-generated content are the hallmarks of social media this could represent a levelling of the castle built by advertisers.

Questions this trend raises for marketers:

1. Is the community manager the most influential function in business-to-business social media marketing?

2. Might social media level the playing field for smaller companies with global reach?

3. Is reputational risk larger or smaller in the community of social media?

4. What would an analytics-minded person be tracking?

Number of followers?

Number of comments recieved?

Frequency of submissions?

Growth rate of followers and/or comments?

How long should "paying it forward" take before a business transaction can be expeted?

Since dialogue is the most highly-valued attribute of an engaged community, [[chime in].