It seems to me a mixed blessing when a new way of thinking begins to percolate within the collective consciousness.  It’s good the message is getting through, but you fear it might be corrupted with too many buzz words. Sometimes we get lazy, use the same convenient terms over and over again and forget to make an effort to explain things. So, in this post I’m keeping it simple and focusing one term worth talking about.

It’s a term I think you might be hearing more of in coming years: “talkable brand” or “narrative brand” and it’s a term I happen to like. Yes, another one of those wonderful marketing buzz terms showcased on countless PowerPoint presentations. There’s a good reason for that too; it’s a core component of good online marketing.

The web is driven by communities, which means they communicate and interact constantly – they talk about stuff a lot. There are countless conversations happening every minute of every day online and that’s a huge amount of talk. Is your brand worth talking about?

You’ll get a lot those buzz words flying around when you ask that question. But let’s simplify things just a bit by considering what makes people talk: actions. Actions make people talk. Actions are the subject of any narrative brand. Even when people just talk about people for the sake of gossip, it’s the actions of the subject individual which feeds discussion. The actions of your brand and thus the attributes of same make people talk.

If you want people to say something about you then do something. There has to be a narrative to your brand story. For that narrative to exist you have to interact with the people you want to get talking. You need to reach out and engage customers and join in the conversation. Listen well, ask for feedback and when appropriate react to it. Notice I didn’t say “respond”, but “react”? Talk is cheap after all and the bigger points will be awarded to those brands that take action when appropriate and communicate that action effectively. Probably the best way to be a talkable brand is to be an action brand.

People probably would like to talk more about what they do with your product than simply hear what it can do. In fact, it’s not even important what it can do. What’s important is what people can do with it – that makes a good narrative. To find out what people are doing (their actions) you need to engage them and ask – every good narrator is at first a good listener.

Use Twitter and Facebook to initiate the conversation and the interaction. Focus on listening, but don’t be passive and remember that even a negative comment or tweet is an opportunity if you handle it as such.

Focus on giving your customers the lead by optimizing your brand narrative across all channels. Use automated solutions to ensure that content which forms the structure of the narrative is available across multiple channels seamlessly when the consumer wants it.

Give the choice to the where/when/what/who choice to your customers. They may not always need to speak with a live person via phone or online, but the choices and initiative should always be theirs.

Ensure you are gathering the right data and use that data to streamline interactions for customers. Continually test and enhance every touch point to be sure all your interactions result in a positive customer experience. Optimize touch points such as landing pages so relevant and engaging content is where it should be and knowledge is always at hand.