Hello? Hey, It's the Web 2.0 Clue Phone!

I spent today at the IDC Decisions 2008 conference in Boston and really enjoyed it.  This is an annual event that's run on the West Coast one week and the East Coast the following week.  While the title of the event was "Tech X.0:  Mastering New Business Models and Markets," I gotta tell you it should have just been called "Get on the Web 2.0 bus." 

According to the Wikipedia (which could change tomorrow), "Web 2.0 is a trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, information sharing, collaboration, and sharing among users."  At the Social Networking breakfast session, we discussed ways in which individuals use Web 2.0 technologies to find like-minded people, develop trusted relationships, and to share information in the consumer world and how social networking has made it's way to the enterprise world.

When I chatted with IDC analyst Rachel Happe after her presentation, she mentioned that the most forward thinking companies are out there monitoring their own blogs and others to see what people are saying about their products/services, and she gave Dell as a good example of that.  I asked if there were any recommendations to follow in the Web 2.0 world for the enterprise.  I shared with her that the rules around e-mail marketing always used to be that it only takes one e-mail to ruin your brand with your customers.  She said that direct e-mail campaigns are an example of one-way marketing.  Social networking is really two-way marketing.  "It's a way to learn what your customers are thinking.  Everyone knows there's going to be some negative feedback out there.  The point is that you're responding to the good and the bad and that you're having a two-way conversation with your customers."  By just being there, you're showing your customers that you hear what they say and that you are responding to it.

In chatting with my peers during the breaks and at lunch, I learned that almost all of them have some sort of social networking going on.  A former colleague of mine from Lotus, Joyce Maroney, told me about the Workforce Institute blog that she does for Kronos, a firm that delivers software and services to help organizations manage their workforce.   In February, Kronos did a poll with Harris Interactive focusing on how organizations deal with extreme weather with their workforce. They presented the results of the poll in a press release and they linked to the release from the blog entry that also talked about the results.  Both the blog and the release linked to a video of Bostonians talking about how extreme weather affects their commute and their work life.  What happened next?  Kronos got press pick up from the Boston Business Journal, AP newswire, and others.  And, Joyce was quoted in several of the articles!  The blog also started a dialog with readers who left comments because they could relate to the hassles of getting to work in bad weather and wanted to share that experience with others.  The comments lead to more subscribers to the RSS feeds of folks who wanted future entries automatically sent to them.

Is Web 2.0 for you?  Well, that's really not a "yes" or "no" question.  In these days of shrinking marketing budgets and declining results from the former tried-and-true methods of reaching customers like trade shows and expensive boondoggles, how can an enterprise not utilize the web to take the social networking that exists in the consumer space and leverage it for business and enterprise relationships?  If you're not there, figure out how to get there.  Chances are your customers and competitors already are.

Comments

[Sarah Hamilton]

In addition to keeping up with the competition, Web 2.0 offers powerful and inexpensive means for achieving frequent touch points with customers. It will be interesting to learn whether, over time, improvements in customer loyalty can be atributed to an increase in trust for companies that embrace this open collaboration.

[Joyce Maroney]

Carole -
Thanks for the link and the feedback on the Workforce Institute blog. I think the key to success with Web 2.0 marketing is to remember that it's an extension of, not a replacement for, your traditional marketing channels. Format without content is empty. You still need to do the work to figure out where your target audience is likely to be found and what they want to talk about. The big difference with Web 2.0 is that you're opening up a two way dialogue (hopefully). So far, I think the benefits outweigh the risks. Love your site and your blog! Keep writing.
Joyce