What Does The Utah Government Have to Do with Web 2.0 Marketing Tools or Strategies?

Deep in the spirit of Web 2.0 Utah State has plunged into a grand Web 2.0 strategy to connect with the community. Unveiling its official state Web site, www.Utah.gov has moved towards a fresh design. The essence of this web 2.0 business marketing strategy is to engage and encourage community users to increase their state and local government participation.  Very Web 2.0, don’t you think?

No different to companies of all sizes attempting the same objective and trying to find the best web 2.0 business model. And out of this connectedness a number of things can happen; some things are predictable while others are more organic or less predictable, often revealing community desires not even the community is aware of. And if you listen the solutions are very close behind.    

But putting up a site isn’t a guarantee for success as most of you know. You need a few other things in the mix before real community connectedness can develop and mature.

Leading social networks have:

1. Trust is a major issue particularly where there is a transfer of information.

2. Security is a priority for any individual, government, business or company engaging in transparency while protecting best practices.

3. Accessible information in itself does not instantly manufacture a two way dialogue. Unless a format, environment and community spirit is activated the dialogue can remain one sided.

4. Crowd sourcing the public effectively to deliver ideas, solutions and practical policies with the belief these will be used constructively to help the community at large and not just the Government.

Doing this without giving up total control is an issue some can’t get their heads around.

With this in mind Utah.gov Web 2.0 tools provide users with:

1. Geographical location software displaying location-specific information, schools and libraries, parks, local meetings and government Web sites for each use

2. Search facilities for government agencies, online services and 50,000 government forms.

3.  Access to 27 state blogs and over 100 Twitter accounts.

4. Access to Utah.gov Facebook page

5. Access to Utah.gov Flickr photo group to view and upload photos,

6. All state RSS feeds.

How this will evolve for the Utah Government is yet to be seen. So far many businesses have been shy about fully committing themselves to Web 2.0. They’re using all sorts of defences such as security, Web 2.0 best practices and Web 2.0 return on investment without getting to the real issue. Control.

But can they survive without delving into Web 2.0? Can you? Not just a website, video or Facebooking but the essence of Web 2.0? They won’t find the perfect web 2.0 business model, next generation marketing or become the leading social network without connecting with their crowd, taking their observations, experience and desires and creating something from it.

This goes way beyond a questionnaire, market research or loyalty cards. This is fluid, flexible and reactive to the now of the crowd. And built the right way the costs are neglible and the returns are very high.

Crowd sourcing within public institutions is starting to catch on. Take the example of the Smithsonian Museum of Art which used an impressive model using Web 2.0 features. 

"Fill the Gap" challenged "citizen curators" to find replacement works of art for the gaps in Luce Foundation Center display cases when collection pieces are on loan sometimes for more than twelve months.

The Museum staff generated assistance from an underestimated resource; its public.

By opening the process, staff turned to online communities for help. Using Flickr they shared photos of cases that need replacement artwork, provided information about the other works in the case, and challenged their community to search their collections for substitutes.

It’s proven a brilliant strategy to engage with their die hard audiences, find what they like while revealing some behind-the-scenes museum activities.

What’s so clever about this model is that it’s a repeating challenging contest that the public is dying to solve with prizes at no expense to the Museum but carries a high perceived value to the winner, who becomes part of the museum’s process along with an unforgettable experience. The success lies with transforming a mundane task into a special opportunity finding the best solution in the shortest time.

The benefits to any individual, business or enterprise that can do the same will find their measurable returns in hours, solutions, dollars and publicity.

Anyone who doesn’t think it will work for them should learn more about Web 2.0; the process, the underlying intention and then apply it. More important than a bigger budget for Web 2.0 platforms is a change of perspective. Find the mindset that goes with Web 2.0 territory.

Without this there will always be some issue standing in the way between a meaningful dialogue between individuals, businesses and their audiences.

See you next time

Christine

If you would like to learn more about Web 2.0 consider reading my book Web 2.0 Traffic Demolisher

Technorati Tags: business marketing strategy, crowd sourcing, crowdsourcing, leading social networks, twitter, Utah universtity, Utah.gov, Utah.gov Facebook, web 2.0 business model, Web 2.0 Tools, Web 2.o, web 20, web2

The Web 2.0 playing field is changing, it’s changing from a toy or play medium that Gen Y ran with to a serious Web 2 tool that businesses of all sizes are using in their business marketing strategies. Web 2.0 as a business model is growing, it’s deepening and the social, business and cutural applications are being added as fast as new names can be created.

Generation Y was the first to see the benefits of Web 2.0 social media. Suddenly friends, aquaintances and relatives were boxed away safely in one place online. Guys rummaged through networks to find the cute girls and photos of football games. Girls did the same.

Although not the first application, Facebook stormed crowds with similar tastes, interests or hobbies to a new level. Then Second Life created a virtual world for people to stroll around with their alter egos, LinkedIn claimed shortcuts for older white-collar professionals and lately Twitter has blasted on to the scene.

Gen Y is still active but the hungry audience of the new web are older, often in business or the corporate world. And statistics tell us there are a lot of them. They can see the implications of reaching prospective clients and customers regualarly especially with the cost, implementation and delivery methods being so  accessible.

But it’s easy to get overwhelmed. There’s so much out there to choose from. Finding the best social networks for branding your corporte identity can be difficult. You can start with the best known for your business web marketing but in the end who you choose should be part of an overall business marketing strategy and not some loose end. This is a great way to get eyeballs and very cheap web traffic  but without an objective you are wasting your resources.

Twitter

The majority of Twitter users worldwide are 35 or older. Just over ten percent of Twitter population in the US is between 18-24 and tweet less often.

LinkedIn

Gen Y is not on LinkedIn. LinkedIn profiles do two things. They sneeze out to the world all the great things you’ve accomplished and connect people in your industry.

Not surprisingly most LinkedIn users are 40 years and over. Gen Y hasn’t stockpiled a heap of things to shout about; they’re still discovering what industry they want to be in and their connections aren’t very connected. 

LinkedIn did a major marketing push offering grads their premium service for a three month free trial; even pitching the site as a way to get jobs. It’s not working.

So has LinkedIn failed to get Gen Y or is Gen Y too busy? 

Facebook

Facebook is growing with chilling speed. New adopters are between 35 to 54 years old which grew at a rate of 276% over the last six months and the 55 and over demographic grew by almost 200% for the same period. Meanwhile, 18-24 year olds only grew 20%.

 Over 35’s are also joining Twitter where it’s all about real-time updates. 

In fact, when Facebook made design changes comparable to Twitter astonishingly the angry mob wasn’t older demographic groups shaking in fear of change but from the long time Facebook users; Gen Y.
 
Those aged over 45 years are actively taking up Web 2.0 social media consumer technology including blogs and podcasts almost 20 times faster than younger generations. Gen Y consumers are reversing their bull charge away from social networking, blogging, podcasting and internet videos. 

What happened and where are they going?

It’s possible that Gen Y has decided that too much is too much. Gen Y may have liked flirting with Web 2.0 but are no longer interested now that the wrappers are off. Maybe when the lights came on it just wasn’t what they expected. After all, chatting over a glass of wine wins hands down over a hot screen and mouse.

Unexpectedly older users have scratched the social media surface and found new strategies beyond the cool PR fog that early Gen Y adopters ran looking for.

Even Chris Cox, Facebook’s Director of Products says, "The people who started the company weren’t cool. I’m not cool, if you look at the people who work here, it’s much more nerdy and curious than cool… Cool only lasts for so long, but being useful is something that applies to everyone."

He’s right. Gen Y are chasing cool not useful. But thousands of others have found useful applications for unexpected things like enhancing branding corporte identity, supporting web marketing, implementing business marketing strategy and are devouring it. 

These are some of the Web 2.0 tools you should consider in your Web 2.0 business model to get cheap web traffic, develop social media networking and develop transparency between you and prospective clients. They will help you with positioning marketing faster and provide many marketing solutions other mediums struggle to deliver.

See you back here soon,

Christine 

Technorati Tags: best social networks, branding corporate identity, business marketing strategy, cheap web traffic, facebook, linkedin, small business web marketing, social media, twitter, web 2 tools

Are You Paying Attention? 

Ironic isn’t it? While offline businesses in cities, towns and villages around the world are desperately trying to cut back expenses, pool resources and find a reliable crystal ball during this jaw dropping downturn, demand for website internet marketing services is exploding. Online marketing activities are stronger than ever. The offline and online worlds act as if they exist in two different universes.

Why? Because consumer online spending is still increasing. This is a red flag in this current market.  

An economic downturn is a great time for everyone from individual traders, small companies and even corporations to rethink and refocus their branding identity, costs, positioning, market share and competitors. No one likes to talk about the positive side of any economic downturn because while everything is morphing into something better, people’s lives are affected; often adversely.

Blood will be spilt and not everyone will make it through this ‘character building’ time but when the high voltage spin slows everyone, everywhere will take a collective sigh to work out their place in the world. And do it all over again.

Sure, everyone will get out there and sing about their next generation of products or services as if that’s what they had been planning all along. But this time the landscape will look different. Web 2.0 different.

Internet marketing has a number of powerful advantages over print and other media;

1.      It’s extremely affordable especially when every dollar counts.

2.      It provides a range of tools such as video, audio, twitter, facebook etc to connect with customers and prospective customers.

3.      It gives higher conversion rates.

4.      It gives good return on investment for dollars spent.

5.      It’s relatively quick to build, implement and distribute.

6.      Platforms are scalable and sustainable.

7.      Customers provide an additional resource for information, product development, growth and strategy.

8.      Results are measurable.

No-one has all the answers. But smart individual and companies are improvising. They can’t afford not to, especially in this market, because while others are nursing their wounds and picking up the pieces, they’re running with Web 2.0 tools to build relationships with potential customers and grab market share. This is not the time to rest.

When everything settles in a few months, a year or two years, they will have achieved more growth with cheaper tools and more focus than previously possible. Web 2.0 social media marketing provides it all and more.

Thousands all over the world are hearing the call. They’re using low cost, fast building website, blogging, article writing, marketing by video and email services, pay per click and search engine optimization (SEO) services to stimulate and secure links back to their sites for solid search engine rankings. Costs are low, turnaround fast and outsourcing reliable.

Traditional marketing services are still in demand, and of course they work, but until delivery costs can be significantly reduced they can’t compete and must wait patiently until budgets expand.   

Web 2.0 social media marketing has several unfair advantages:

1.      It costs only a fraction of other marketing and advertising channels to create.

2.      It has greater audience reach with lower costs.

3.      It has high value, long term engineering elements that build interest and trust in companies, products, people and culture by stimulating virtual conversations unlike the usual one-way company shake and rattle delivered with other mediums.

4.      It’s highly measurable. Trial runs, tests and experiments are all easy to measure allowing you to see what works, what doesn’t, who makes up your demographics and where they live. Most of these results are free allowing you to improve your campaigns with laser–like focus until you get it right.  

What this means to anyone paying attention is that no matter how big or small your venture, enterprise, product range or idea Web 2.0 marketing tools can help you grow exponentially. You just have to make the leap, put objectives in place, followed by a set of realistic strategies and focus.    

Stay in touch for tools, strategies and web2.0 patterns.

Christine 

Technorati Tags: branding corporate identity, business marketing strategy, internet marketing, internet marketing for small business, small business marketing solutions, social media, social networking, web 20, web20

Online video marketing is one of the hottest forms of internet viral marketing. Anyone serious about internet marketing should pay attention. It provides an unprecedented opportunity to provide great content and get ranked on the first page of Google with incredible speed.

The best part is you don’t need -

• a website,

• blog site,

• memberships at Facebook, MySpace or Twitter.

And the cost is so low television, newspaper and other print media execs are hoping it will go away. And if it doesn’t should they embrace it or condemn it? In the virtual world of virtually anything this web 2.0 business tool is virtually F.R.E.E!

You could compare video marketing to a television commercial but that would be a fatal mistake.

Firstly, online video marketing is far more effective because of the low costs to produce, transmit  and potentially greater audience reach.

Delivery costs are negligible since you’re not paying television stations for air time or print media for space. You can take as long as you like as often as you like to show the world your products, services and ideas and give out all your contact details or just the bare essentials which is great for offline businesses and better for ideas with nowhere to live.

Suddenly, everyone can reach a social network audience but can get them to listen?

Many argue that television commercials capture audiences even if it’s only as they stroll past into the kitchen to make coffee, put on the dryer or change channels. The same people staunchly believe in the subliminal ’something must stick’ syndrome. But even this theory is losing ground as next generation technologies skip or take out television ads making the impossible possible; no boring ads and strangling advertising revenues.

Truthfully, video marketing has an equally challenging hit and miss risk factor. Because people are constantly hunting for good quality content, delivered in interesting ways. They will happily leave your video without hesistantion unless you can convince them to stay.

Master and deliver to your audience and before you know it you’ll have an uncontrollable marketing virus on your hands and an audience that will look, listen and salivate for more.

Marketing by video  has been around for a while. In terms of positioning marketing it is one of the most effective web 2.0 marketing tools available for return on investment, audience reach and an efficient way to establish a public online body of work; whether you are a small business, an artist, a corporate, television producer, musuem or interrior designer. Internet video is a highly effective business internet marketing solution.

Once you learn how to apply internet marketing by video you can create videos to support any marketing strategies already in play, make announcements, educate or entertain your audience. You can convert audiences from prospects to customers or keep in touch with your existing customers on a regular basis.

Some internet marketers scoff at video marketing effectiveness believing search engine optimization or article writing as a better use of resources. Wrong! No one’s suggesting that marketers throw out all their tools and only use internet video for all their branding or marketing. Everything contributes to a total marketing solution. But as far as marketing tools go, videos connect to peope like television or film; movement and emotion. And it’s hard to compete with that.

And compared to creating thirty second television commercials, videos are just simpler and less expensive to construct. You can make a video in just a few minutes or a few hours. Look at the video below to see the kind of audience numbers you can expect from using directories apart from Youtube to send your video to. It not only lists companies providing these services but also other services they provide such as converting your video into a pod cast for listeners. Of course, these numbers can be leveraged according to the size of your audience, customer base and resouces. But its the concept that’s important. Get that and leverage away.

But the greatest opporunty for anyone interested in positioning their opinion, product or business is that there’s a warmed up global audience on the ready to speed through content and sink their teeth into the next big thing; the quirkier the better and it’s all so convenient because it comes out of the same box as a lot of other content.

Online video marketing gives you a world wide opportunity to bore your prospects or excite them into laughter, shock or action. The choice is yours; social media video marketing is here to stay.

High level visibility of video marketing should not be ignored. It can change your bottom line in an instant and it’s legal.  You can show your videos in one place like your blog or website or upload them to as many video sharing sites or get them bookmarked on social sites for backlinks to your site with more free traffic. Either way, don’t miss it.

Come back for more traffic tips by submitting your name and email details and get on the emailing list. For a total overview of Web 2.0 marketing strategies, including video, go to Web 2.o Traffic Demolisher to dominate your market.

See you soon

Christine McVeigh 

Technorati Tags: business mark, internet marketing, internet marketing for small business, marketing by video, small business internet marketing, small business web marketing, web 2.0 business tool, web 2.0 strategies

How to Dominate Your Market Using Web 2.0!

Creating A Better Web 2.0 Business Model

Demand for online Web 2.0 marketing services is exploding while offline businesses all around the globe can’t escape the jaw dropping economic downturn. While most businesses are shrinking expenses during this economic downturn the reverse is happening in the online world. In fact, online marketing activities are stronger than ever. This is not only about companies wanting to flex their competitive muscles but consumer online spending is still increasing which is a red flag in this current market. 

An economic downturn is a great time for companies to rethink their brands, costs, positioning, market share and competitors. Yes, there’s blood on the floor but when the axis stops its high voltage spin some companies will have transitioned safely to the Web 2.0 world, connecting with prospective clients and talking about their new generation of products or services as if they were Lazarus reborn.

Smart companies are improvising. No one, not even in this market can afford to not market their products and grow their market position. Everyone is looking to business marketing strategies that are:

• affordable,

• cost effective,

• give good returns on investment and

• allow sustainable platforms they can build on.

Web 2.0 social media marketing provides it all and more from :

• internet marketing by video,

• social media networking,

• crowd sourcing solutions,

• Facebooking and

• online auto responders 

hundreds of companies all over the world of every shape and size offer website, blogging, article writing, video and marketing services as well as pay per click and search engine optimization (SEO) services to stimulate and secure links back to their sites for solid search engine rankings.

Costs are low, turnaround fast and outsourcing reliable. This isn’t about cutting out traditinal marketing services but about branding corporate identity through a new set of tools and strategies with multiple chanels, low associated costs and high value, long term engineering elements.

Social media is about building trust in brands, companies, people and products and stimulating virtual conversations unlike the usual one-way company shake and rattle delivered by other mediums. And its measurable.  

Whether you are an individual new to the internet, a large corporation, a membership site, a school or the government, if you are interested in:

1. business marketing strategy,

2. web 2.0 business models,

3. positioning marketing,

4. branding corporate identity,

5. marketing by video,

6. social networks and social media

Invest your time in understanding the enormous potential of Web 2.0 and follow the link to Web 2.0 Traffic Demolisher: How to Dominate Your Market Using Web 2.0 Tools!  

Regards

Christine.

Technorati Tags: branding, business marketing strategy, corporate, identity, positioning marketing, small business marketing tools, small business web marketing, web 2.0 business models, web 20, web2