Using the Tools of Web 2.0 for Marketing
- 1. Using the tools of Web 2.0 BCTIA Go 2 Market Roundtable Boris Mann, CEO, Bryght Andre Charland, President, Nitobi
- 2. What is Web 2.0? Interactive, dynamic websites that get updated frequently A “human” tone of voice and communication methods User generated content and interaction Flash-bang whizzy browser effects that also happen to make it much easier to build web applications and integrate tools and data across the web
- 3. Blogs and Wikis Two of the most accessible, useful, and easily implementable tools are blogs and wikis Blog short for “weblog”, this is a regularly updated list of web postings written in a conversational tone – must at least have RSS and permalinks to be considered a “real” blog Wiki a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change content this ease of editing by multiple people makes it good for collaborative editing
- 4. Podcasts and Videocasts Just like blogging (in that people can subscribe to them and be notified when there is new content) Podcasts are audio only, videocasts include video as well Same rules apply as for blogging: informal, conversational tone A well done audio or video post can often drive huge traffic to your site also: cross post to large sites like YouTube or Google Video to take advantage of viral distribution
- 5. Interact with customers If you don’t have a place where customers can post feedback...they’ll find somewhere else to post it Customer feedback – good and bad – is valuable, so look for it everywhere use tracking tools like Technorati to look for mentions of your company and product names to search the entire web in realtime
- 6. Personal Branding Branding your executive team or top employees as thought leaders in your space is one use of blogging Can lead to speaking engagements and other opportunities to highlight the company and its products Did we mention that blog == Better Listings On Google?
- 7. Internal Usage Not just for public websites Use blogs and wikis as easy ways to have information flow and be kept up to date within the company Price sheet distribution Repository of re-usable templates Product manuals as wikis, support wiki Competitive intelligence RSS feeds and Technorati searches as a clipping service
- 8. Real Time Search Real-time view of what people are “talking” about online right now Google updates every couple of days, and will show “top” results, not every time someone is talking about you and your products Technorati Ask.com/blogsearch
- 9. Google Apps for Domains Google is quickly rolling out many tools – Gmail, Google Spreadsheets, Writely Google for your domain allows you to manage access to Google applications through your own domain name