From Herd:

"Join the conversation"....for a lot of brands it sounds beguiling.

You mean, instead of paying through the nose for ads as we go into a recession, I can spend less by having a chat with my customers online about my product and brand?

Sadly, very often the answer is no. On his blog Jeremiah Owyang says, "I find the colloquialism “You must join the conversation” a tired phrase legacy of 2006. It’s overused, oversold, thrown around and just not accurate."

Let's be blunt: If you are a brand, and your agency gets you to 'join the conversation', they aren't having you join it at all. Through the various widgetery, and blanket sell-ins to bloggers, you are often intruding on it.

And, though there are exceptions to the rule, where brands have got it right, a trawl through some of the applications on Facebook suggest a less than impressive return on investment once you look at usage rates.

Are we sick of hearing the word widget, asks Darren Herman at Ad Age? Damn right we are! US media strategist Ben Kunz put it perfectly in a Business Week article last year, when he pointed out that social media users are by and large not in the brand / buy frame of mind when hanging out on Facebook, though they might be when on Google or Ask.

Don't get me wrong, the Web can obviously be a powerful tool for collecting customer feedback, but there's a time and a place.

But, if we shouldn't be joining the conversation, what should we be doing? The conversation is important, but rather than being a participant, we need to steer our clients towards being (and apologies for slipping into brand speak) facilitators. It's not about joining the conversation, but hosting and fostering it.

Really, it's just common sense, and it's something we do offline all the time.

I mean, say you are a Vodka brand and you want to reach a live music audience. You wouldn't create your own band called '40 proof', pen lyrics about how your hooch is distilled with grain and not potatoes, and then wonder why noone comes to watch them play. (Well - unless it's an obvious piss take. For someone who has got it right, check out the White Gold / milk campaign in California).

You'd, oh I don't know, support up and coming bands. Host a competition. Have a series of live music nights. All supported by a web strategy where fans can maybe get exclusive tracks.

Or, to look at someone who has got it right in social media - mobile phone giant Orange in the virtual world Second Life. As most people in this space will know, brands rushed into the virtual world in 2007 and most got their fingers burned when residents didn't want to buy their virtual goods or look at their virtual ads.

Orange is still there, with its own area, which it devotes to supporting digital artists (we posted about it here). There is an area on Orange island where you can find out about their phones....but it's not the first thing you see and you have to look for it.

Joining the conversation....that's like being the guy at the party who hovers over two people having a private chat. Now the guy who buys the drinks and lets the conversation flow, he's popular!

Photo - No Happy Hour, by Gwen.