Web 2.0 in mostly plain English: a workshop take down
December 12, 2008 :: Jill Foster
It was all there at last weekend’s workshop Web 2.0: Mostly In Plain English, a guide to successful innovation through an audience centered lens.
- -The emergence of social media from the first-generation web aka Web 1.0;
- -How blogging can help make this your most profitable year (even in this fiscal climate);
- -Analytics and optimization tips for your website;
- -Next steps for our 2.0 world and business;
- -And more…
ClickForHelp’s Chief Innovation Officer Ken Fischer hosted the event along side sponsor Judy Ann Schandua, President, Enigma Business Solutions. Rounding out the speaker line up were presenters from Ruiz Mcpherson Communications marketing maverick Mayra Ruiz-McPherson, Web 2.0 real estate blogger Tony Arko, and Network Solutions own senior consultant Andrew Bates.
Web 1.0 to 2.0 to audience-centered revolution
Mayra gave an overview of how the Web was first used plus how it related to current 2.0 conversational depth (and she underscored: Don’t worry! It’s still the Web; it’s just used differently with different online tools). Tim O’Reilly a few years back wanted to excite people about his upcoming conference; and in generating that buzz, he and his team crafted the term Web 2.0. And from there, the straight forward – ‘in plain English workshop’ – took off with varied context and conversations on doing business in Web 2.0. Bottom line, online communications and media are much more audience & community centered than in the website-centric 1.0 days.
People like making connections with real people; and Web 2.0 technology should be viewed as how to facilitate this natural activity.
-Ken Fischer, ClickForHelp
Psychology factors in: how communities have replaced message control
In sharing how social media can be perceived, this concept stood out: it’s not how people “should” respond that’s as relevant. Within community dynamics, emotional, social, and logical concerns in community influence how people reach decisions and beliefs. So when creating and communicating in Web 2.0, practitioners should ideally plan strategy around how people socialize within their communities. Outreach to communities (vs demographics) is optimal because they espouse a unique, natural communications behavior.
And when considering social media solutions to engage your customers or defined audience, keep these principles in focus: relevance, interaction, connections, empowerment, and community outreach.
Despite the overall real estate market and economy, I’m now having the best year in my career. -Tony Arko, real estate agent, consultant, blogger
Blogging business power: creating a real estate boom
Tony Arko first started blogging and using social media one year ago as a real estate agent in Loudoun County, Virginia. He confirmed 1/3 of his business comes from his blog’s readership (fantastic) and mentioned prospective home buyers usually contact him after reading his blog for six to eight months. And this is just simply folks reading his industry-based content for Loudoun County real estate; with his blog – he does not practice conversion strategy beyond making content available (with added tips below):
- -perceive a blog as chance to establish expertise and trust with potential customers, community in general, and even mainstream media;
- -know your goals for the blog; some of his top intentions for his: 1) be in the top front Google search results and 2) use key blog posts to answer common, repetitive questions from different home buyers;
- -use key terms relevant to your business for SEO purposes i.e. Loudoun County real estate;
-write about what you love – be passionate about content to find your voice;
-remember Google will search sites that are updated more often so that helps get to top of search results more readily.
It takes at least 200 words of written content for search engines to really recognize and search it appropriately. -Andrew Bates, Network Solutions senior consultant
Your online content: search spending stats & what customers do pre-purchase
At least $21.9 billion was spent last year on search spending with expectations for that figure to grow 30% this year. But what was most compelling was learning 81% of consumers research products online before purchasing. So it’s still as critical for making it easy for customers to find you and your business online. SEO remains our friend.
For your Web presence: a roadmap to the user experience, metrics, and more
- -define goals for your website and what you want visitors to do upon arrival;
- -enact measures based on time increments i.e. progress at 3 months, 6 months, one year, etc;
- -secure a domain name;
- -focus on the user experience and what they really want i.e. don’t assume video should be on the front page just because it’s pretty;
- -remember everything can be measured; so use tools like www.analytics.google.com to assess what actions visitors take i.e. sales conversions, e-newsletter requests, membership enrollment.
And feel free accessing more Network Solutions resources (some are free!) like whitepapers or webinars on SEO, e-commerce, and more.
It was a full afternoon at this Web 2.0 workshop with even more discussions, brainstorming sessions, and networking than what one blog post can do justice. Thanks to Ken and all for making this possible and for letting me join in events!
(photo by Daniel F. Pigatto under Creative Commons license 2.0 A-NC-ND)
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