We all know that content is king in marketing in these days. If you don't have great content, it really doesn't matter what cool channels you're using. But how do companies think about creating truly compelling content, especially if you're steeped in the world of traditional pitches, white papers, and promotions?

Scott Anderson, Vice President of Customer Communications for HP's Technology Solutions Group (which serves business customers) provided a great answer during a BtoB webinar today on how business technology buyers use media in the buying process.

According to Anderson, HP has made three major investments in content creation in the last two years:

• Build a new editorial team staffed especially by technology journalists, rather than marcom people. As he noted, journalists typically have both a more skeptical eye and better story telling skills 
• Organize a platform to enable HP's subject matter experts (engineers, consultants, etc.) to bring their own voices directly into the market (rather than being "translated" by the marcom staff) with blogs, forums, and other conversational contributions
• Create more opportunities for HP customers to share their own stories and ideas at events and online.

Has HP fully swept out the old and embraced the new? Of course not. You can easily find all manner of traditional features and functions promotional content from HP -- and not all of it is useless. According to buyer research presented by tech publisher CMP during today's webinar, many buyers do actually want to see the technical details, so long as it comes during the right phase in the buying process.

Most important, though, HP has taken three important steps forward in creating a more content-rich, content-driven, and conversational approach to the marketplace: Tell better stories, share expertise and knowledge in authentic ways, and help your customers talk to each other about the issues you care about most. Not a bad model.

Is nuclear power good for the environment? Now there's a conversation starter! And, indeed, it served quite well to power the conversation a few nights ago during the eighth annual 360 Summit at the New York Stock Exchange. Organized and sponsored by WF360 and NYSE Euronext, the summit brought together about 150 business executives for an evening of networking and conversation, topped off with the presentation of the 360 Leadership Award 2007 to Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA, the world's leading nuclear power company.

The award was an interesting one, especially given the evening's opening comments by WF360 CEO Susan Willett Bird on the importance of business leaders and companies focusing on the environmental bottom line. Lauvergeon made a strong pitch in her prepared remarks (delivered at the dinner by an AREVA deputy) about the value of CO2-free nuclear energy in a world driven to curtail global warming. But the audience included a number of skeptics, and certainly the nuclear power advocates within the environmental movement comprise only a small (although perhaps growing) minority.

The conversations sparked by the award illustrated perfectly the objective of the event: bring together a group of smart and interesting people, ply them with enough food and drink to loosen their lips, and prod them to talk about serious issues. Discussions at my table, which included leaders in finance, manufacturing, consulting, marketing, and international diplomacy, ranged from the state of public education to conflicts between Islam and the West to the globalization of capital investment (with just a few digressions into the second game of the World Series, the score of which a few of us were periodically checking on our Blackberries under the table).

Sparking high-powered conversation is what WF360 is all about, and the long list of corporate supporters for the event (including Bombay Sapphire, CA, Conde Naste Portfolio, Dior, HarperCollins, Harvard Business School, TBWA, and more) reflects the growing corporate understanding that the best marketing these days follows that same approach.

The key, as Bird also noted in her opening comments, is to focus on "conversations that matter." In case we were all tongue-tied at the Summit, she scattered a batch of conversation starter cards around the dinner tables, with quotes like these:

 "If your company is doing business in a developing country, what responsibilities does it have to support and promote basic human rights?"

"Why are inequitable salaries, a lack of female and minority representation on boards and within executive leadership, and class action suits related to sexual harassment or discriminatory practices all still realities?"

"Other than an innate competitive drive, and of course the desire to make the company profitable, what values are most important for the corporate leader of today? What principals should that individual hold dear?" 

Now those are some of the conversations I'd like to see more businesses sponsoring in the marketplace. 

It's easy to say that your organization is "customer focused" -- and few people these days dare say anything but. The reality of customer power has been pounded into us all so relentlessly in recent years that we all sing the same tune about being customer-centric, customer-driven, customer-obsessed, or some rhetorical variation thereof.

As John Hagel noted recently, however, "the practice rarely matches the rhetoric."

Hagel suggests three fundamental questions to test the reality of customer focus:

1. Who in the organization holds real decision-making power? Is it the organization that manages relationships with the customer or is it some other group?
   
2. What are the primary measures of performance for the firm?
   
3. What is the primary focus of the brand promise of the company?
   

Typically, as Hagel suggests, the answers to these questions move quickly away from real customer focus. On the power front, few companies even have a senior executive or team accountable for managing customer relationships end-to-end (i.e., integrating and encompassing at least marketing, sales, and support).

Regarding performance, metrics around product, business unit, and overall corporate performance more commonly drive  the business than customer profitably or other customer-oriented financial metrics.

As for brand promise, few companies put customer responsiveness, satisfaction, and/or relationships ahead of product and market orientation (e.g., we provide the best products or lead this or that particular market).

So where does your organization stand? On our side, I like to to think we're working hard on all three fronts, but, truth be told, we've still got a ways to go. Hagel's questions provide a sobering test, and answering them honestly creates a much better sense of the reality than any number of odes to the customer from the marketing song book.

Pete Blackshaw wrote a thoughtful column last week about the dangers of making "friends" too easily on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and the like. The invitations come fast and furious, and it's all too easy to just click "yes" to accept the request regardless of how well you really know or care about the person doing the inviting. It's flattering, and the connection might come in useful at some point. As Blackshow noted, though, "at some point, you can't just say "yes" blindly. Friendship comes with obligations, responsibility, and some level of accountability."

It's certainly true that gaining value from social networks is difficult if you close yourself off from actually networking. And if you limit yourself to just accepting invitations from people with whom you already have a strong relationship, you're highly unlikely to learn much of anything new. 

But the promiscuity of so many of today's networks is a main reason why business executives are generally slow to get involved. They have even less time or tolerance for phony friends than most folks, and are extremely wary of opening their virtual doors to unwanted suitors.

That's why, as I suggested recently, the most successful online communities for executives will be the ones that build off face-to-face activities and groups. Social networking will no doubt continue to grow across executive-level communities. But keeping them focused and protected will make all the difference.

At first glance, the new Social Media Index from ITtoolbox and PJA suggests that social media is finally hitting home at the executive level. According to the two firms, IT executives trust blogs, online communities, and other user-generated content more than any other information source when making purchase decisions. In the words of Mike O'Toole from PJA, "We've seen lots of research about social media usage, but this is the first study to link that usage to something tangible--how IT executives are using social media and user-generated content to make better purchasing decisions."

Dig a little into the data, however, and the story becomes rather less compelling. For one thing, the study looked only at print and online sources of content. But most research with executive buyers shows clearly that conversations with and referrals from colleagues and other peers are far more important than any print or online content. Ignoring word of mouth is a serious shortcoming of the study.

For another, the executive participants in the survey are largely from relatively small IT consulting and other technology firms -- and identify themselves as purchase influencers rather than decision makers. This hardly seems like a representative set of the senior executives from large companies across the economy that still make up the most important audience for most large technology vendors. I can't see the breakouts for other industries, but  there are literally only 1-3 executives included from such industries as financial services, government, health care, and energy.

Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled to see that executives of any stripe are now spending as much time with social media as with traditional media, and stating that they are receiving helpful ideas and feedback from online communities and user-generated content. Most marketing organizations absolutely could stand to get more focused and creative with social media at the executive as well as other levels. I just wouldn't go overboard and cut back on the face-to-face initiatives that are still the most useful way to truly engage executive buyers.