The World is Round: Why Marketers Need to Embrace Web 2.0

Micro Blogs – a form of blogging. You can type short messages to a group of people you select. You tell them what you’re doing right now. I attended a conference where people communicated through Twitter (micro-blogging) about the sessions they attended. Micro blogging is still young technology. Keep an eye on it. Google has acquired (micro-blogging tool) Jaiku and will probably announce plans soon. There are a lot of potentials for micro blogging applications in B2B. See: http://www.findandconvert.com/blog/2007/micro-blogging/.  

Blog Marketing
Blogs are very friendly to search engines.  Blog content is updated frequently. Search engines like updated content.  Blogs are therefore powerful SEO tools.
Blog URLs are called Permalinks. The Permalink can be named using keywords. Blogs are link centric.
Blogrolls: a list of other blogs you think are relevant.
Blog content can be submitted to social bookmarking sites like DIGG.com.  Blog search engine: Technorati is #1 search engine for blogs.
Social bookmarks offer another avenue for your blog content to be propagated across the internet.  

Social networking: Informal audience poll: LinkedIn profile 50% of audience. Facebook: about 10%.
Social networking sites are Web properities comprised of communities. It’s similar to networking in physical networking. Microsoft recently invested in Facebook. Facebook is rapidly being embraced by the business community. We can create our own individual profile in Facebook. We can also create a profile for our business. Facebook has 56M subscribers and adding 250,000 new subscribers each day. Fastest growing segment is over 25 (age). About 40% of their base is now over 25. You can look for “groups” and join groups.  Groups have conversations about topics. Visit groups of interest to see what conversations are taking place. Participate in conversations.  WSJ article about Facebook allowing application developers to write applications.  70,000 developers worldwide have developed over 2000 applications.  More ways to use Facebook to communicate, network, build relationships, evangelize your company, ourselves, propagate our content across the internet. 

Watch for vertical social networking sites.  Not many of them now. Look for social networking sites that target a specific group of people.

Social networking case study: Information Builders, Inc.
www.ittoolbox.com.  A social networking site for IT professional. A great site for IT people to collaborate and find information. IBI identified this social networking site as a target rich site. They visited the site for one year to study the members and their issues. They identified topics for a white paper strategy. They identified the marketing opportunities available within this social networking site. They promoted their new white papers through email and the site’s white paper marketing vehicles. They exceeded their goals by 42% and closed new sales delivering a 750% ROI.

Podcasting: a digital media file available through the Internet through a subscription.

Podcasting Strategies:
Identify the content you have available for a podcast, e.g., tips, trends, best practices.  Research in 2006: business podcast listeners complain of a lack of podcast content. Consider the podcasting format: interview, mono presentation.  Produce text show notes for search engines. Track subscriptions. Build loyalty. Offer them some call to action. Recent podcast from Find and Convert has over 600 downloads. Statistics: Most popular podcast is the most recent podcast telling me the topic is popular. Most listeners have subscribed to my podcasts and listened to the other shows. iTunes search for “web 2.0” I’m ranked #2.

Wiki – a software application that allows you to link web pages together for knowledge sharing.  Wikipedia is best known as the encyclopedia on the web. 50% of corporations will use wikis by 2009 according Gartner.  Wikis are popular in customer service, sales, human resources.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is the next generation of web based software applications using web 2.0 collaboration features.

Video: allows anyone to upload to Web 2.0 properties like YouTube.  Videos can be tagged. Google search results display video content. Video is a fantastic way to propagate content and drive search rankings.  Great example is “Shift Happens” video in YouTube.

Web 2.0 statistics: survey summer 2007.  Which type of web 2.0 medium have B2B marketers used in marketing in past year?
Blogs 70%
RSS 57%
Podcast 52%
Social Network 40%
Wikis 22%

Actionable items for Web 2.0 on your current website:
Provide RSS feed to your content on your website.
Allow people to post comments on your blog.
Allow people to update your wiki.
Allow people to upload content into your website.
Any button that allows people to subscribe to something you offer is a form of Web 2.0.

Final recommendations: Do something!
Start blogging, join conversations, make friends, build relationships.
Visit social networking sites – Facebook. Look for vertical industry social networking sites.
Join groups in social networking sites.
Launch a blog but plan the strategy first.
Establish a corporate policy with do’s and don’ts for social media.
Consider podcasting to propagate content.
Redesign your website with web 2.0 attributes.

Closing thought:
Web 2.0 allows you to open the door for conversation with your customers, prospects, employees and future employees.

Q&A
How do you convert and monetize usage of social networking media?
Study the audience, Find out what’s important to them. Understand how we can market to them following the “rules of engagement.”Vertical industry social networking sites offer more marketing vehicles.

Are opt in pages viable?
Only if the social networking site makes it available. 

Blog how do you keep a blog from getting out of control?
Develop corporate guidelines. Don’t be afraid of criticism.  Embrace criticism and commit to making it right. Your community watches how you respond to it.

Many blogs seem to use Google Adsense.  What’s the future of PPC?
Click fraud is not as big as you may hear.  PPC is not going anyway anytime soon.  Content sites are more risky than search engines for paid advertising. Web 2.0 offers marketers more diversity of advertising platforms.

What are the measures of success to web marketing in 2.0? 
How you measure success, depends on the industry.  Measuring activities on the Internet, e.g., leads, sources of leads. 

How much budget do we allocate to Web 2.0? 
Often it starts with an experiment and grow it from there based on the results.

End of Presentation