I’ve been throwing around the words ‘interactive marketing’ lately and been met with odd looks. ‘We/You don’t do that’ is often the response. I started to wonder how many of us have changed our definition of what Interactive actually means in our marketing efforts. Am I just using the term incorrectly?
‘Interactive’ was once a term used just for web-based assets developed in flash or some other script. Now, its evolved into all that we do as conversation based communicators. Interaction is what we are requesting every time we put out a product for engagement. Blogs, social media, video are all forms of interaction with our audience. Products we hope they interact with and that leverage them to interact with each other. Is this what interactive marketing means to us and our colleagues?
Where once interactive may have described web-based applications that required users to click, they now demand that users communicate. Just as ‘marketing’ has changed, so has ‘interactive’.
How do you discuss ‘interactive’ marketing/communication efforts? Is everyone on board with this definition? If not, are you educating them?
jesskrywosa.com 
An old post, but it just caught my attention.
I like your phrase, “conversation based communicators.” That pretty much defines it for me, though I don’t limit the idea to digital.
“Interactive” is actually part of my real job title (as well as my semi-anonymous Web persona name), and I like to use it as a jumping-off point in conversations about my job.
The immediate assumption is Web, but I point out that all communication can and should be interactive, even print. I ramble on a bit about this in my bio on my (rarely updated) blog: http://robinteractive.wordpress.com/about/