Marketing for the Web 2.0 world
On my Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles I explain that I’m a Marketing Consultant for the Web 2.0 world.
What does that mean?
Web 2.0 is a catchphrase that envelopes concepts like social media, web-based applications, and internet-enabled collaboration, and community.
A quote from Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc., (perhaps the best computer book publisher in the world) sums it best. “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.
I recently began consulting for a company involved in open source software. One of the first things I do as a Marketer is assess the business landscape. Market Research. While previous research techniques were expensive and time consuming, Web 2.0 enables speed, and cost effectiveness.
Until recently, a marketer might have gathered this information over several months, and stored it in several places. (A few folders in their file cabinet, some files on their computer, etc.) Every few months they’d pull that information out, update it, and author a market research report for use.
What’s wrong with that?
In the Web 2.0 mindset, what’s wrong is that no one but that marketer has access to the data. What if someone needs that info right away and it’s that marketers day off? Also, the information can’t easily interface with or cross-reference other data gathering systems,robbing the opportunity of more insightful analysis. Additionally, the marketer, or team of marketers, did this alone. What if Sally in accounting found a noteworth intelligence tidbit? She can’t contribute, and the quality of the research suffers.
What’s also wrong is that information that waits for a report in order to be utilized is stale. In the Web 2.0 world its stale by a long shot. Another probability is that the data gathered doesn’t give the full picture. Chances are it doesn’t encompass the myriad new ways that people communicate information.
How Web 2.0 can help.
Here’s how I used Web 2.0 for my current client, and previous employer. I used a web-based application called Rivalmap (www.rivalmap.com) to gather competitive intelligence that I discover on the web. Rivalmap has a convenient bookmark tool that in 2 clicks allows you to save web page locations, note particular text within that, add separate notes, and tag the page with your own keywords for cross-referencing. You need do nothing special to use the service, you do all from your browser while going about your normal web-based activities. The data is kept “in the cloud”, on Rivalmaps servers, and anyone you give access to has access 24/7. They can also add to the data, and join the hunt. You can set up several work groups within Rivalmap for as many subject as you wish, and can also set up RSS feeds to monitor keywords, industry news, relevant blogs, social media communications and important websites. Using RSS fresh data flows daily into your Rivalmap workspace, you don’t have to go and get it. Another research tool is AttaainCI (www.attaain.com), which provides even greater functionality along the same lines (of course it’s more expensive too).
Using Rivalmap I built a relevant base of competitive intelligence over the course of about two-three weeks.
Web 2.0. Marketing of the next generation.
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