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Featured Industry: Marketing
Marketing 2.0
Chances are, you've heard the terms "social media," "web 2.0" or even "RSS feed" at some point recently. Maybe you've heard about them, but still aren't exactly sure what they mean and why you should care.
Companies are now able to divert from the formulaic way of marketing and begin putting emphasis on other means. In addition to promotional efforts such as press releases, search engine optimization, and banner advertisements, organizations are leveraging buzz marketing to increase product anticipation and target a specific demographic. Video clips, news, and pictures can be released through social networking sites in order to gain brand equity and increase product awareness. While these are just examples, you can see the potential here and how new ways to market Internet products and services will evolve every day.
If you're thinking about utilizing social media or other Web 2.0-like services on your own site, or you want to look into the marketing possibilities offered by these services, the first place to start is by looking at the big picture and to understand the lingo.
Marketing 2.0: Marketing 2.0 is a natural outgrowth of Web 2.0 as it refers to the transformation of marketing resulting from the network effect of the Internet. Marketing 2.0 represents a dramatic shift in marketing to account for customers researching and buying goods and services independent of advertising and marketing campaigns and messages. Traditional media may be used in Marketing 2.0 - online and offline. Examples of Marketing 2.0 vs. Marketing 1.0 include: e-mail vs. direct mail, webinars vs. seminars, and press releases vs. blog posts.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): SEM consists of two elements - Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search Engine Ranking. SEO is the act of altering a website so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. Organic search listings cannot be purchased. Websites must be altered to be search engine friendly and to encourage the search engines to rank the web pages for keywords and phrases that are relevant to the website and web pages. Paid Search Engine Ranking is exactly as it sounds: purchasing preferred (higher) placements within a given search engine. Most customers know this as Google Adwords or Yahoo! listings, although there are many other engines.
Social Media: Wikipedia defines Social Media as 'the online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs.' Websites like del.icio.us, digg, YouTube, and newsvine are examples of new channels to reach an online audience. These types of sites serve as portals to people everywhere and are delivering media in the form of pictures, blogs, video clips, and feeds. By understanding how these sites work, you can leverage them to reach more people in more markets.
The Blog: The blog (stands for "web log") is another new form of communication that has caught the eye of the marketing world and is regularly used as a tool to garner attention for a company. The blog is a journal of sorts that is authored by a person and is an outlet for thoughts, opinions, and news. Used wisely, the blog is a great tool on many fronts. However, blogs are easily linked to and spread to others. There are many free sites out there that have templates built in and are very easy to get started blogging. A few popular ones are Blogger, Blog.com, and Blogstream.
RSS Feeds: RSS or "real simple syndication" allows your website visitors to subscribe and read your content in RSS newsreader software. Whenever the web page is updated the newsreader will automatically display the new item. Some news readers are programs that are downloaded and installed on a computer and others are web-based services that can be accessed via a web browser.
Webinars and Podcasts: Two other forms of Marketing 2.0 that should not be ignored are webinars and the podcasts. Using a webinar to promote a new product or service is a great way to offer an interactive format for journalists to use. Imagine the benefit of offering a webinar instead of a conference or event where the attendees have to physically attend. Also with a webinar, your material lives on much longer than just the day of the event. Media and customers alike can access your presentations for as long as you make it available. The podcast was originally intended to turn website content into audio content that is downloaded onto an iPod. What makes podcasting special is that it allows people to publish (podcast) radio shows that interested listeners can subscribe to. Consumers can choose when and where they listen to your information.
Marketing 2.0, social media, the next generation of marketing, whatever you want to call it, taking advantage of the new technology tools available to your business can be a cost-effective way to expand your outreach. It is a new way to think, but once you get used to using these social media tools, your marketing efforts will become more profitable and further-reaching. Bottom line, with Marketing 2.0 you are only limited by your creativity and your imagination.
If you're interested in finding out more about Marketing 2.0 and the world of social media, access this issue's useful links and industry events.
SOURCES:
ClickZ
The Internet Digest
Wikipedia
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