Web 2.0 Expert Interview Series: Part 2

2. What's next in Web 2.0? The content concierge

Steve Rubel: "People will be much more confident creating and finding content, but they have so many choices and there's only so much you can read in one day. The technology can scale, but humans can't. Young people seem to be able to cope more easily with all the sources of information out there, but there's still a finite wall that people hit. They want curators to help them separate art from junk and cope with attention crash."

"I see this with some new services like Mahalo, and Knol from Google, Blogrunner, and The New York Times' most frequently emailed list of stories. You have both technology helping to find out what's hot and humans who are making the decisions that power that technology, and both are working together to curate the content."

Amanda Watlington: "The danger I see happening is that if readers don't get what these social networks or technology innovations do, or if it becomes a time [sink], they aren't going to give it their time. I think we are going to see a much more carefully chosen set of social-media outlets, that people will become much more particular about which social media they choose to use."

"For some, it might be the rich community sites that are very tightly confined to interest areas, while for others, it will be the more broadly based communities. I am an avid user of LinkedIn, but not Facebook, because I consider it too public. I use LinkedIn for tracking long-lost friends and business colleagues, and I consider it a valuable part of what I do. People are fascinated now with Twitter. But again, it can become intrusive, and it can become a time [sink]."

3. B2B Web 2.0: Marketers as community builders

Laura Ramos: "In B2B marketing, we believe the social media direction will evolve from treating social media like it is 'yet another' outbound, broadcast communication channel to community marketing. Community marketing shifts the conversation from 'messaging' to using marketing activity and resources to help customers adopt new, better business capabilities."

"Marketing takes on a more educational role focused on customer successes. It's less about cross-sell, upsell and more about leveraging social activity to turn customers into loyal buyers and into advocates for the firm."

"This will be a big change for B2B marketers - a transition from the advertisers that buyers shun to the proactive concierge buyers seek to obtain business services and capabilities they need."

4. Be relevant or be ignored.

Steve Rubel: "I heard this great term from Scott Donaton (former Ad Age editor): 'GMOOT.' That's where your boss reads about something, like Second Life, or Facebook, and picks up the phone and says 'Get Me One Of Those!' (which spells GMOOT). I'm actually seeing less of that, fortunately. People are becoming more strategic, now that we've seen what the cost of mistakes can be."

"What I advise companies to do is to experiment with the model. Traditional media relations is very one-way, pushing out messages. You have to understand that social media is collaborative. Understand where you are, where your company is, and where your audience is in this mix, and then figure out how you can bring it all together."

Amanda Watlington: "I am concerned that marketing via social networking is vulnerable right now in this current economic climate. Yes, some of it is very low-cost, but are there other ways to reach people? Part of me says, 'Don't look just at the cost. Look at the cost-benefit analysis.'"

Resources:

Link to Part One, "5 Web 2.0 Marketing Strategies:" http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-viewpoints/web2_1.php

Steve Rubel's personal blog, Micro Persuasion: http://www.micropersuasion.com/

Greg Verdino's personal blog: http://gregverdino.typepad.com/

Amanda Watlington, Searching for Profit: http://www.searchingforprofit.com/Site1/company.html

Laura Ramos, Forrester Blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals: http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/