Back in 1999 a set of 95 theses were put forward by a small group of web commentators and early bloggers as a manifesto, or call to action, for all businesses operating within what is suggested to be a newly-connected marketplace:

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed… As a direct result, markets are getting smarter – and getting smarter faster than most companies

Their Markets of Conversations slogan was subsequently revised to include Relationships and Transactions, but although they described what they considered to be the new reality for businesses in the digital age the manifesto was not a prescription as far as how businesses should join the conversation. Some believe that the answers is for businesses to use social media technologies as means of having a two way dialogue with their consumers, although as the agency Zeus Jones point out:

Apple is proof that transparency is that transparency and two way dialogue are not essential for “social success”

They argue that social media marketing, as carried out by the mainstream, is still based on the AIDA model (“a relic from mass communication”), i.e. consumer Action is result of Awareness creating Interest and Desire. Instead they suggest that social media technologies should be used to provide actual services that have not been designed simply to generate conversations. Alternatively, brands could create products that people actually want to talk about!