Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 3.2

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Part 3.2 Youtube

Here’s a thought that might help you understand the paradigm shift from the old internet to Web 2.0:

‘The adoption of Web 2.0 is like moving from a totalitarian Internet to a democratic Internet.’

Let’s break this down:

The old internet was made up of sites that put information on that they thought was relevant without readers’ input. This also meant that they could exclude any information which was contrary to their efforts. Hence you have the scenario where websites are dictating to you, much like the way Hitler used wave his finger when addressing a crowd. Web 2.0 sites, on the other hand, leave it to the users of the site to create the content, so in fact the content is by the people for the people and there is no control over the direction the content will follow, it seems to ebb and flow with the voice of the community. The people also determine what is popular and what isn’t by different forms of what is basically voting, although this simple concept takes on a few different names in the Web 2.0 space (depending on what voting service is used) such as: Rating, Digging, Stumbling, bookmarking, tagging and yes even voting sometimes.

Youtube is a Web 2.0 site and is a great example of content created by the people for the people. But you may be thinking: ‘Well all I do is watch videos on Youtube so how is that Web 2.0?’ The answer is simple really, if you sign up (for free of course) with Youtube, you will see a whole lot more functionality which is the true power of the service. So firstly videos are uploaded by regular people like you and me (we call them users) which is very Web 2.0. You can also rate a video which will contribute to its popularity and is nice and democratic, you can email a video to a friend, post it on Facebook or even put it on (embed is the technical term) your blog or website all of which falls under the social networking side of Web 2.0. Make sense? I hope so!

Coming up in Part 3.3, we’ll either be discussing blogs or podcasts depending on my mood at the time of writing it.

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 3.1

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning.

Part 3.1 Social Networking sites, Facebook and Myspace

Ever been on Facebook or MySpace, or better yet, built a profile on either or both? Well done – you’re one of those above-mentioned users creating content on a Web 2.0 site/social media site!

A social networking site comprises of a collection of tools that make it easy to stay in contact with your friends: new and old, close and far, and even sometimes forgotten ones that find you. According to Facebook, I’ve got over 200 friends, but I’m not sure how exactly!

So the power of these sites relies on the old adage of 10 people invite 10 people who invite another 10 people, and so on until you’ve got over 50 million users (if you’re Facebook) and over 100 and something million users if you’re MySpace. I’m not going to give specific numbers as it changes all the time but check out Marketingcharts.com for the latest stats.

Did someone say marketing goldmine?

Think about it: traditionally, Old (boring heck) Media could only give you basic demographics about your audience or an audience you are trying to target, such as age group, location, sex breakdown, or some sort of LSM or expendable income measure. On social networking sites, people voluntarily give up all sorts of information about themselves: exact location, age, preferences, marital status, job, industry, favourite books, movies, websites, cities etc.

A great example I heard the other day is if you are a wedding dress service company in, say, Derby in England, you could specifically target all the ladies on Facebook of a certain age in England (or anywhere in the world) that are engaged and thinking of getting married in the Derbyshire area. The options are endless!

Actions: The only way to truly understand the power and addictiveness of these sites is to try them for yourself. Simply go to the website, sign up and follow the prompts to start searching for friends. Once you find just one, you can search all of their friends. You’ll be amazed who you will find! If you are struggling, let me know and I will help you get started. Which one do I prefer? Definitely Facebook, but that’s a whole other debate for another post.

Coming soon: definitions of Wikis, blogs, Widgets, and all those other things I mentioned.

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 3

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning.

Part 3: What kind of Web 2.0 services are there on the Internet?

So some of you might still not be too sure what this so-called phenomenon is – let alone understand why your future career might depend on it – so let’s drill down further into the major categories of the kind of websites that fall under Web 2.0.

The categories are as follows:
Blogs
Social Tagging
Social Networking
Social Media
Wikis
Podcasts
Widgets
RSS – Not entirely sure that RSS fits in here exactly, but it is the fuel that feeds the fire of many Web 2.0 services.

There are most probably more Web 2.0 website categories out there, but in the list above are the ones that I am aware of and once you’ve (and I’ve!) finished this tutorial, you will be comfortable enough in this new space to run around and explore freely finding your own favourite services!

Yeah I know, I know, you still probably don’t entirely know what I’m on about but in the next few posts, I’ll define each category (as closely as possible) and give the best example websites of each which will help you understand this Web 2.0 thing much better. Hang in there, we’re getting there.

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 2

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning.

Part 2: So what is Web 2.0?

Well unfortunately the definition varies and you’re not going to see the term Web 2.0 in the Oxford English Dictionary any time soon.

The thing is that Web 2.0 is not an official term, as such. It’s not like Bill Gates woke up one day and said “Oooh I’m gonna make a Web 2.0”. When I first (mis)heard about the term a few years ago, I thought they were going to re-vamp the entire Internet infrastructure and make it twice as fast as before (Wikipedia also alludes to that misconception in its definition so I don’t feel quite so dumb).

So I would call Web 2.0 the collective name for a new breed of websites that rely on blogging, social networking functionality and users of the service to supply the content.

I would be so brazen as to say any website worth its salt will have at least a few Web 2.0 elements going forward.

So basically the creators of the website supply little or no content and the people reading or interacting with it create some or all of it. Think about Facebook (if you haven’t used it yet, where have you been?). The developers created an empty shell of a platform with tools for anyone (or almost everyone using the net these days) to upload their own content, in turn creating the website’s content.

Still don’t have a clue? Don’t worry, read on to part 3 of the tutorial where I break down Web 2.0 into the major kinds of websites that fall under this ‘umbrella definition’.

In part 3: What kind of Web 2.0 services are there out there?

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 1: Why Bother?

New to the tutorial? Click here to start at the beginning

Part 1: Why bother?

So before you embark on a journey of discovery, you need to stop and think ‘why bother?’ or, even better, life’s greatest cliché-question: ‘What’s in it for me?’ Before Chris Columbus squashed that egg and impressed the queen enough to be granted permission to sail to the Americas you can bet he thought long and hard about why he should bother to live on a ship for the next few months.

So you’re a ‘postcard marketer’ that is thinking of embarking on a journey into the new world of marketing and you want to know why you should bother. Here are a few reasons:

• It’s good (if not essential) for you career. If you plan to stay in marketing, this is the way to go.
• Critical mass. Web 2.0 websites/application have active members in the hundreds of millions.
• The ability to target very niche audiences.
• And targeting niches has led to psychographic targeting – many a marketer’s Holy Grail. Have a look at this article from Marketing Vox on Facebook’s Psychographic Targeting.
• Web 2.0 applications offer many solutions for internal and external communication solutions. If you’re in communications, you are always looking at ways around the ‘face to face delete syndrome’.
• Blogging can create two-way communications between company and clients, or even execs and employees, aiding with employee engagement.

I’m sure there are many more marketing advantages to Web 2.0, and many more to be discovered, so please let me know if I should add to the list.

In part 2: So what is Web 2.0?

Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers

Introduction

Lately I have been trying to present some Web 2.0 marketing ideas/solutions to my colleagues. I was surprised to find out that many of them didn’t even know what a podcast is, and none of them had ever listened to one before. So, as you can imagine, they didn’t see this medium as a high potential marketing solution.

Armed with my ‘For Dummies’ style of engaging and explaining (a skill that I’ve developed over years of trying to teach my parents how to add an attachment to an email) I set about raising the technology knowledge (tech-knowledge-y?) level of my colleagues. My objective is not to turn them into ‘New Technology’ Marketers, but rather to help them understand the platforms so that they can use their classical marketing experience combined with their new knowledge to come up with solutions or implementations that I might have missed.

This is the same objective I am trying to achieve with this series of tutorials. I will attempt to impart my knowledge of Web 2.0 marketing onto those of our friends in the marketing fraternity that are more comfortable with a postcard than an email.

And once you have worked through the tutorial, you will have a greater understanding of what I’m going on about on the rest of my blog and all the similar blogs out there.