It’s what “now” marketing is all about: consumers talking to consumers about products and services. The web is the medium to facilitate this conversation and the importance of C2C, as the last un-abused channel, has never been more prominent.

C2C has always been a bonus or by-product of good B2B or B2C advertising, but it wasn’t the message’s vehicle. C2C has been known to be a powerful form of persuasion and now that advertising is rarely trusted, C2C has gained strength.

The web offers two-way, immediate communication with varying degrees of control. How online conversation is conducted and managed shapes its effectiveness. In its purest form, an unsolicited blog post or comment in a forum, the message seems real and honest. As control is exerted, the message gets tainted and meaning is lost or altered. Moderating comments or posts seems suspect and seeding topics is deemed unacceptable. Controlling or contriving communication is powerful and can have drastic affects. The previous example of a blog post is at one end of the spectrum and a flat out lie is at the other – no matter how it’s disguised.

Advertising has always been known to be adverting. It almost has a built-in disclaimer – “Beware, I’m an ad. I am carefully crafted to fool you.” But C2C does not have this wrapper, thus intensifying the reason for immediate reaction when the implied rules of conversation are broken. We’re seeing this in many instances with fake blogs, contrived viral videos and deceitful emails.

Can this abuse of C2C ruin it forever and bring the level of un-trust to that of the to-good-to-be-true ad? I think so. So agencies take note. Don’t go down the same road as you have with other media. The web is a young and vulnerable medium, but has more power than any other. Work to harness it, not abuse it. C2C is best nurtured and supported. Be the conduit or catalyst not the creator or the manipulator. If treated with respect and allowed to occur unimpeded C2C is the form of communication that will build a brand the most.