What makes online conversation marketing via blogs, social media, and the like such a success is that it spurs interaction. Interaction can lead to many things, most importantly sales. However, for all the talk of interaction and customers gladly spreading your story for you, there is another side to the coin. While there are the conversationalists out there that will quickly build relationships with your business if you meet their needs and exceed their expectations, there are also a whole lot of listeners out there.

Listeners are quiet folk. They don’t engage nearly as much. If they get on your forums, its probably to find a specific answer to a specific problem. They aren’t commenting on your blog. They aren’t responding to your tweets. Because you don’t see the interaction, it is easy to discount the listeners, or to question if they are even there. But these people are listening. They are being impacted by the content you put out. They are just as loyal as the conversationalists. Sure, they don’t write blog posts recommending your company to everyone in the world, but that’s because they don’t have blogs. They are probably recommending you quietly to a trusted friend who they know will benefit from your business.

The quiet ones can be a hard group to connect with. If you are doing all of the right things online, but not seeing the results spring up like you wish they would, be sure to not throw in the towel too soon. The listeners outnumber the talkers, in my opinion. If you just stop blogging because you aren’t getting comments or seeing sales, you might be leaving some people out in the cold. If you have visitors to your blog, you should keep blogging. If you don’t have visitors, you should invest some time and money in education so you can be a better business blogger, but that is another story.

While you won’t get the kind of gratifying interaction on a regular basis out of the quiet ones that you will get out of the talkers, you will get great value. You get that value by consistently providing value. The listeners are the steady force behind your online efforts. They will subscribe to your newsletter and actually read it. They will attend your webinars. They will buy your products.

Chances are that they will also help you spread the word. The difference is, they won’t do it on their own, at least not on a large scale. That isn’t because they don’t love your product, its because they aren’t talkers. They do not have platforms of their own. But don’t give up on them. Connect with your regular loyal listeners and buyers. Draw them out. You can probably get some pretty amazing testimonials from them. When they send you a referral, it will likely be a dead-on qualified lead. You’ll take one of these a year over countless unqualified visits to your site or hundreds of spam followers on Twitter. The quiet ones make up in value what they don’t deliver in amount of interaction.

You’re job is to not give up on them. Keep writing your blog. Keep posting your best insights on Twitter. Keep talking, and they will keep listening. While your words won’t always trigger a response that you will see, you are planting seeds. And if you ever do find yourself in a conversation with a quiet one, you will be amazed at the depth and value there. Listeners are learners and doers. They have an important place in your online conversation marketing plans. Don’t leave them out by stopping your end of the conversation.

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Bradford Shimp helps small businesses develop online marketing plans at BroadRiverCreative.com.