Bravo, you've gotten past thinking that SPAM and NOISE are good ways to get sales referrals or to gain a reputation (a good one that is). You've even gotten some folks to respond to you as you comment on various articles and blogs. RESPONSE is good.
Perhaps you have taken the big step beyond 140 character communication (aka Twitter or any other micro-blogging/status update) and have become a citizen of the blogosphere.
The secret there of course is saying something that people are interested and of course, working to engage them in DIALOGUE. That gets you as far as Rung #4.
So how do you get to Rung #5, CONVERSATION?
What is the real difference between online dialogue and conversation? I would distill it down to one word - ENGAGEMENT.
You can see that I've added the word engagement to sit across from the word relationship. True relationship is built over time and quite often involves "knowing" the person, either personally by meeting face to face or by talking over the phone (or Skype). Engagement can occur with people that you don't "know" in any sense other than dialogue over the Internet.
You don't normally use the term dialogue with people that you know intimately (e.g. "I had a great dialogue with my husband Michael yesterday"). No, that is a conversation.
What we are talking about here is the degree of engagement, the degree of relationship.
Stay tuned to hear about the next rung, which requires you to also add in a large dose of trust into the equation.
Chicke Fitzgerald | founder | Solutionz Media 813-925-0789
