Marketing Web 2.0

Yesterday I participated in a Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) marketing and communications roundtable discussion on the topic of Marketing 2.0. The discussion was moderated by Rob Carroll from Clickability (who I notice hasn’t been posting much lately on the his blog). Early in the discussion Rob distinguished between social media as a product (or service) and social media from a marketing perspective. The discussion focused on the latter.

Some interesting points from the panel:

• People agreed on the importance of building customer communities. Lots of good discussion about the importance of having clear objectives, finding ways to measure success, and what role marketing should play (facilitator only? actively involved? no role whatsoever?)
• Rob Lamb from Clickability (and formerly Salesforce.com) talked about the Yahoo community board being the first version of what’s become success.salesforce.com.
• Rob also stressed the importance of having a clear focus in your social media initiatives and always knowing what problem you’re trying to solve.
• Some panelists noted that some 1.0 marketing tools are still the most effective (direct mail anyone?) because of spam filters and email overload. Will we see a back-to-basics movement? Is this all just a bubble? (As the classic video below describes - sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
• A lot of time was spent talking about the growing importance of blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc. and the demise of traditional marketing brochures, datasheets and the like.
• When it comes to Marketing 2.0, less is more. Frequency is critical.
• Some of social media books and websites recommended by David Thomas and others include: Here Comes Everybody, The Paradox of Choice, and Webmama.
• Who knew that WD40 had a fanclub and 2000+ uses? Other good community examples include TiVo and Salesforce Ideas.
• Susan Chenoweth from Jigsaw mentioned a webinar they did that had 5000+ attendees. Make the topic catchy, yet relevent. There’s was, “Turn Cold Calls into Gold Calls.” I let her know that I’m a fan of the Garth’s World blog.
• I like the term “crowdsourcing“.

The bottom line seemed to be that firms that aren’t waiting and jumping into social media initiatives are seeing success. The old command-and-control corporate structure simply won’t work so find ways to have a dialog with your customers and get them involved. The next panel will showcase social media success stories as it’s clear that this is a hot topic.

Somewhat gratuitous, but here’s the bubble video in case you missed it…

posted by Darren Cunningham at 4:56 pm

---