David Meerman Scott:

Learning about someone's product doesn't sound like a way you want to spend your valuable time, does it? Stories are exciting. Most marketing is not.

Your job as a marketer is to tell stories that people are eager to share with their friends, colleagues, and family members.

I see a lot of this in marketing circles now, on blogs and on Twitter. It's a nice idea, but there's a very basic problem with it: "telling a story" doesn't move the ball forward, unless that story illustrates something about what your company does. Sure, people love stories, and they'll read entertaining ones whether they're related to what you do or not. What they won't do is get any idea as to what your company does, how it does it, and how you can help them solve their problems.

Stories are great - so long as they are connected to what you do. If they aren't connected, you might as well try to be a novelist.

There's another problem here, too. When I'm searching for solutions to a problem I have, the last thing I want to run across is a meaningless story about something that a marketing department thought would interest me. What I want to find is the answer to my problem. Say I'm looking for help with CSS for my site - is it more helpful for me to find a long winded story about some random topic, or a site that gives me examples of how to solve my problem - along with an offer to help me do it?

Marketing is a conversation, but it's a directed one.