Marketing in a Web 2.0 World

In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, professors from Babson College gave some helpful insights on using Web 2.0 tools to market products and services. It is good to see concepts AIR Marketing has been advocating introduced to the larger business community.

The professors gave the following advice to marketers seeking to use social media technologies in their marketing programs:

Listen to — and join — the conversation outside your site.

Consumers tend to trust one another’s opinions more than a company’s marketing pitch. And there is no shortage of opinions online.

The managers we interviewed accept that this type of content is here to stay and are aware of its potential impact — positive or negative — on consumers’ buying decisions. So they monitor relevant online conversations among consumers and, when appropriate, look for opportunities to inject themselves into a conversation or initiate a potential collaboration.

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Resist the temptation to sell, sell, sell.

Many marketers have been trained to bludgeon consumers with advertising — to sell, sell, sell anytime and anywhere consumers can be found. In an online community, it pays to resist that temptation.

When consumers are invited to participate in online communities, they expect marketers to listen and to consider their ideas. They don’t want to feel like they’re simply a captive audience for advertising, and if they do they’re likely to abandon the community.

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Don’t control, let it go.

In an online community, every company needs to find an effective balance between trying to steer the conversation about its products and allowing the conversation to flow freely. In general, though, the managers we interviewed believe that companies are better off giving consumers the opportunity to say whatever is on their minds, positive or negative. Moderators can keep things running smoothly and coherently, but they shouldn’t always keep the conversation on a predetermined track. The more that consumers talk freely, the more a company can learn about how it can improve its products and its marketing.

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Find a ‘marketing technopologist.’

So who should direct a company’s forays into Web 2.0 marketing? A number of managers identified an ideal set of skills for an executive that go beyond those of a typical M.B.A. holder or tech expert. We coined the term marketing technopologist for a person who brings together strengths in marketing, technology and social interaction.

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Embrace experimentation.

One Web 2.0 strategy does not fit all, and sometimes the best way to find out what’s best for a given company is to try some things out and see what happens.

AIR Marketing conducted a fall series on exactly this topic to help CMO’s and marketing managers better understand interactive online marketing.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0