Web 2.0: All The Best Opportunities Online Are Social

By Allen Taylor

Web 2.0. Say it out loud because it’s here. But what is it?

In a word, Web 2.0 is the name given to the post dot-com boom and bust of Internet growth. It’s been impressive, hasn’t it? Companies like eBay, PayPal and Amazon.com have proven that business can be conducted on the Web and it can be profitable. Now the rest of us can have our turn.

Internet growth and business management in the post dot-com bust world can be described in one word: Collaboration. If you’ve been wondering how to tap into this Internet boom you’ve got to learn how relationships are built online and capitalize on it. There are no lone rangers online.

While collaboration is the key to success in the Web 2.0 world, it helps to know the tools available to you as you embark upon your new venture in cyberspace. Here’s a short list:

• Blogs
• Content Management Systems
• Wiki
• RSS
• Affiliate Programs

You can expect this list to grow. The question that is probably on your mind is, “What can I do with these tools?” That’s a good question and the answer is, Whatever your imagination unveils. Nevertheless, here are a few tips:

Blogs – If you don’t have a blog by now, you’re behind the eight ball. Blogs are the first step into Web 2.0. They allow you to start a conversation with your customers, to enter into dialogue with the marketplace. You can update your customers on your business plan, survey or poll your customers to find out what they want and receive feedback from your customers by allowing them to comment on your posts. Of course, you can always have a collaborative blog where more than one blogger makes posts to the blog as several successful and high profile blogs have already done. Example: Church of the Customer.

Content Management Systems (CMS) – A CMS is an easy way for you to manage your website’s content. It’s almost impossible not to have one in the Web 2.0 market. Unless you are planning to learn programming languages like HTML and Java, or you have the money to hire a full-time webmaster, then you’ll benefit from a CMS. There are three ways to go about this, however:

• Open Source
• Purchase a System
• Design Your Own

Which of these ways is best for you depends on your goals and circumstances. Just know that a CMS can shave off a lot of time in your marketing and business plans. You can upload content to your website in just a few minutes as opposed to a few hours. This is something you definitely want to learn about. Examples: Joomla and Drupal are two open source content management systems.

Wiki – The ways to use wiki have not been fully explored yet but what you’ll need to understand about wiki technology is that it is intrinsically collaborative, unlike HTML. Wiki allows you to build a website without spending time uploading content. This is true collaboration and gets right to the heart of what Web 2.0 is all about. One famous wiki, Wikipedia, allows users to add encyclopedic entries and edit content input by others. This is truly amazing technology.

RSS – Another Web 2.0 technology we couldn’t live without is RSS. There are several acceptable meanings to this acronym but the one I prefer is Really Simple Syndication. In essence, if you’re not syndicating your content then your content is getting found. Everyone is doing it, or should be. And anything can be syndicated – blogs, articles, Web copy, news, jokes, anything you put on your website. RSS allows your website visitors to subscribe to your content and receive updates automatically every time you change or add to your content. Yahoo! Pipes is the latest RSS tool to appear on the scene and gives users the ability to mash several RSS feeds into one.

Affiliate Programs – It is difficult to fit this one into the Web 2.0 model without a little imagination but it’s a powerful tool for building any Web business. An affiliate program allows you to build a sales force that will promote you, your products and your services for you. The great thing about affiliate programs is that you don’t have to pay your sales force until they make a sale. You can build a list of business partners, most of whom will become your customers before anyone else even hears about your new products just because they want to try it out first so that they can help promote it and make extra income. Don’t overlook this powerful method of building your Web 2.0 business. One of the foremost authorities on affiliate programs is Allan Gardyne at www.associateprograms.com.

Web 2.0 is all about building online relationships and collaborating for maximum growth. To succeed online, you must be willing to shed your lone ranger mentality and develop partnerships. My most successful ventures were a result of joining forces with someone else. I’m confident that yours will be too.

Allen Taylor is an award-winning journalist and freelance writer. He operates a full-service content provider for online businesses, a local small business directory in South Central Pennsylvania and Articles.pn, an article directory with social networking tools.

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Internet Marketing Strategy News: Social Media Making Inroads into Mainstream News Providers

By S. Falkow

There has been an interesting development in the Reuters Internet Marketing Strategy. You know you're making your mark when a media stalwart like Reuters pays millions of dollars for a share in a blog distribution start-up. Social media could ask for no better endorsement.

Reuters has invested $7 million in Pluck, the world's biggest blog syndication network, called BlogBurst. BlogBurst connects newspapers and other media sites to 2,800 selected blogs, helping traditional media supplement their journalism with blog viewpoints, says the official announcement.

Web logs, or blogs, have become a major source of commentary and reader feedback on the Internet. Traditional media have increasingly turned to blogs for insight and analysis, says Reuters.

If you're still wondering whether a blog could be a good media relation and PR tool, perhaps this is the final push you need to make blogs part of your Internet marketing strategy.

Of course Reuters won't be indexing just any blog. "Selected blogs" is the key phrase here. Technorati indexes millions of blogs and the number doubles every 6 months. Pluck syndicates 2,800.

In real estate the mantra is location, location, location. You need to think content, content, content.They want blogs that offer insight and analysis--interesting content their readers will want to consume.

Keep in mind the eMarketer findings on why people read blogs--the number one reason is, "To get news and information I can't find elsewhere." Provide that in your blog as part of your Internet Marketing Strategy and you'll have a good chance of making the cut.

Sally Falkow is President of Expansion Plus, Inc., and author of Website Marketing Strategy Ebook. She is an authority on Internet Marketing and search engine optimization strategies. For more information, visit http://www.expansionplus.com

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Making Social Media Sites Pay!

By Raymond Nesa

Social media sites like YouTube, FaceBook and the various “wiki’s” are quickly becoming the hot growth sites of the moment. They’re attracting a large number of participants as well as large numbers of visitors. Until recently, most of these sites were commercial free –and therefore there was no good way to earn money from them except to use the content to generate backlinks and the like. Now that’s changed. Capitalism has once again proved its resilience!

You’ve seen the obvious “product placement” arrangements in the movies and, now, smart businesses are using a not-so-subtle form of product placement in social media sites. People are getting paid to produce sponsored social media content – e.g. including Coca Cola in their video clip, or getting paid for posting Diggs to Diggit.

There’s more to come. A lot more. For video clips alone, many providers are willing to pay for the development of the clips ($400-$2000 dollars in some cases) and others will pay handsomely to attach a small ad to the end of your clip and pay, not on pay-per-click, but pay-per-view. For photographs, companies like Scoopt and ScoopLive will buy your photos and give you a cut on resale revenue. Writing is being purchased just as hungrily. Advertisers will now, apparently, pay for blog postings, article writing or profile-associated product references.

What’s clear is that content is king and social media offers the biggest and broadest opportunities to attract visitors and attached advertising. Your ability to turn your social media contributions into money-earning propositions is only limited by the imagination!

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

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Alice In Webland - Internet Trials And Tribulations

By Aidan Maconachy

After her adventures in Wonderland, Alice heads off to college with a brand new computer. She is a relative newbie to the internet, and when she goes online she is subject to a myriad of influences. There are temptations, lures and come-ons on every page ... pop-ups and tantalizing links ... everything from ads promising a brilliant new product at rock bottom prices to flashing signs that announce she is visitor 1,000 and the soon-to-be recipient of a lap top computer.

On subsequent visits to the site Alice notices that the flashing 1,000th visitor sign lights up every time the page loads, erasing the "special me" rush she had first time in. She also notes that in order to obtain the lap top she has to respond to a marathon questionnaire. Twenty minutes later, after filling in the answers, she discovers there is a requirement to purchase one of the products before becoming eligible for the lap top. This legitimately annoys her because the sign announced that she had won the lap top fair and square without conditions. And that's just the beginning of the frustration and anxiety that sets in as she wonders deeper into the electronic rabbit hole where nothing is quite what it appears to be.

The psychological effect is not reassuring. Over time she develops a cynical tolerance for con games, email scams, advertising gimmicks and false personae. There are exceptions of course. Sites that are true to form and that actually deliver as promised. But nevertheless the dominant impression is that anything goes in this strange habitat, and unlike the real world where you can call 911 when danger lurks, you have to pretty much fend for yourself.

A friend recently remarked that everyone seems more paranoid and defensive these days. He puts it down to the "internet effect". It's true, the web can have a paranoia inducing effect, and its not far fetched to believe that the private anxieties of millions of users can build into a contagion of sorts.

For example a blogger using a pseudonym is likely to worry that the boss might figure out her identity, especially after the long gripe she posted about the lousy pension plan at work. An employee who has said something indiscreet about the boss in an office email wonders if it will go against her. All of this stuff tends to create a conspiratorial climate, with people wondering what A, B and C know about D, E and F. And the thing is, there is no cure-all. No magic bullet. If you are a determined surfer all you can do is develop survival skills and coping mechanisms.

The other challenge Alice faces as she wonders deeper into Webland, is the need for more and better security. Her first password "alice2" no longer offers the protection she thought it did, especially since she has been using it for twenty or so different accounts. A nosy room mate spotted it on her wordpad and gained easy access to her financial records. To make matters worse she even discovered Alice's user names and got access to even more accounts!

So Alice begins to dream up fiendishly long and complex passwords, such as Wh-i!Te-r+aB*biT6788450. So long and fiendish even she can't remember them. After the scare with the nosy associate she no longer keeps passwords on the computer. Now a little black book is required in which she religiously notes down user names and 16 letter passwords, just to be able to come and go out of the places she frequents in the electronic rabbit hole.

Is this a recipe for neurosis? Very possibly. Add to the complexity of passwords, all of the new fangled security devices she requires - the precisely configured firewall, spyware trasher, snoopfreedom ware, anti-keylogger detective and other programs designed to keep her safe, and paranoia is already beginning to build. She realizes that Webland has begun to take her over. Every escape route proves to be deceptive and she finally concedes there is no way out. This is her life. She has glimpsed the future and this is it - passwords, up-dates, virus checks, spyware scans, defrag drills, registry maintenance, spam elimination etc etc.

She thinks nostalgically back to the days when life was simple. Days when she was free, unshackled to a keyboard. Free to wonder in the park without a care in the world, without having to worry if someone was hacking into her financial files or reading her emails from Wendel, the romantic dentist in Barbados.

But it's too late, too late ... that very important date is no longer a flesh and blood escort who picks her up in his car. Now he arrives on a screen in the form of a batman avatar and addresses her in text. It could be worse. At least she knows if he turns out to be a jerk she can boot his avatar with a nifty program, send his details to rot in Iggy Land and pulverize his pics and messages with her super efficient Shreddermatic.

What a life!

Aidan Maconachy resides in Ontario, Canada. He has a BA Hons and a BEd. He taught in the UK and Canada, and has been a contributor to a variety of magazines and newspapers over the years. You can visit his blog at http://aidanmaconachyblog.blogspot.com/

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Social Media – Can Internet Marketers Make Money Here?

By Sean Ray

Understanding and knowing the depth of knowledge that goes into marketing is such an interesting topic. Upon completion of my website, I was trying to determine how to and where to market my website. Then I realized, I should use social media and use internet marketers to assist me. The outcome was fabulous and I have never regretted by decision for doing so.

Social media marketing is a great way of using virtual marketing to make money. Internet marketers can increase their money and revenue simply by offering services to advertise for social media. Marketing is a tough field to branch into and getting the right advertising can make or break you. Internet marketers provide a great service in that they are aware of how to market specific to the internet. That is what they specialize in, hence “internet Marketers”. Using their services able you to create more of what you seek, customers and money.

But can internet marketers make money. You bet! They understand the marketing and advertising industry. Know how to describe and relate to companies their personal recommendations as required by the audience and market.

They understand what drives the market and what audience to promote to. Knowing and understanding the buzz and being able to generate to that is what internet marketers do. They will strive to make sure that you are advertised where you need to be. As an internet marketer you have the comfort knowing that as long as the Internet is here (and I don’t see it going anywhere) you will have a position and a high demand for your expertise.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Internet Article Marketing

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

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