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)

However, the team at ClickforHelp is not stopping there. CFH has a number of service groups with specific focus to help their small business customers. Recently, I was able to catch up with Ken and talk about CFH and its plans for the future. Here is the transcript of that interview:

Steve: You guys have been building ClickforHelp for the last few years. Since this not your first startup, what are some lessons learned, good or bad, which you have applied to this venture?
Ken: In my previous startups, I tried to rely on myself to do too much and did not put in place organized processes to help me be more productive. I have also put more emphasis at ClickforHelp in training managers and cultivating an enthusiastic culture which prides itself on creating unique solutions using the latest techniques and technologies. In short I am learning to be better manager.
Steve: What exactly is ClickforHelp and how can small businesses utilize it?
Ken: ClickforHelp matches business goals to Web 2.0 techniques and technologies. We work with clients to identify ways in which they can become industry leaders through their online presence, take them through the implementation process and continue to support them afterwards. We have several case studies this year of working with companies in different industries to help them offer an online presence which is unique and compelling in their industry.

Steve: Since you are a mix of products and services, how does this mix impact the culture and approach to building internal vs. client solutions? Does one take precedence over the other?
Ken: Any independent service which we offer will have a separate support team so we are not choosing whether to support it or work on a client solution. Our client solutions come first over in house projects. But our in-house projects are mostly smaller experiments which give us experiences and insight into how to create better client solutions. Our core emphasis is on creating online presences which evoke responses rather than convey information. The core of Web 2.0 in general is to provide relevant and accessible content in an interactive fashion and effectively evokes a response from the audience. Often times it does this because it serves a need of the audience not just the need of the publisher or client.

Steve: According to Gartner, “Web 2.0” is in the “Trough of Disillusionment” where is projects over the next 12-18 months that since the hype has worn off that these technologies will be folded into mainstream software development and adoption. Do you agree or disagree and why?
Ken: I think they are referring to specific examples of Web 2.0 such as blogs, podcasts and other types of applications which have gotten very popular. We also don’t believe a blog is an answer for everyone who wants to start a discussion or community but it is for some. We try to find the overlap between the audience’s interests, the available interactive techniques, and the resources of the client or publisher in an innovative way. The underlying principles of content relevance, interactivity, making connections, and, above all, evoking a response from the audience is here is to stay. We are writing our applications with these principles as a guide and adding innovative twists by looking at where an industry does not follow these principles through available services. For instance we just released Get Up! Get Out! Get Moving! Exercise now! This is a facebook application which aims to make exercise a more social activity and therefore more rewarding. We worked with our client, AAOS (American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons) to find a unique offering which uses new media principles and promotes exercise in the general population.

Another is the new Rosemasters.com (about to be released). We are adding the ability for flower senders to add a video which the flower recipient receives after getting the flowers. We call these guided conversations. We augment a conversation among the audience by using new media techniques but in a way different than is available through the standard blog, discussion boards, etc.

Steve: To close our interview I would like to get a “Top 5” from you. Since we are facing some tough economic times ahead for possibly the next 12-18 months, what are the Top 5 things you would recommend new entrepreneurs running a business should do to weather the storm?
Ken:
1. Innovate. Now is a great time for small companies to innovate because larger companies often do not have the budgets to duplicate your efforts. We recently did a business analysis in real estate for a client, and recommended a completely original niche which is not current being filled by any of the zillion online real estate offerings. We now have the attention of some of the top online listing services even before we have completed the 4 month development cycle.
2. Connect, Connect, Connect. Being part of a community has been a protection in hard times since the dawn of civilization. Web 2.0 techniques and technology have the potential to broaden these efforts and make them highly efficient. Learn how to be valuable in the communities you belong to and they in turn will value you more.
3. Get back to basics. What are ways to increase productivity and decrease costs? There are still a lot of inefficient processes out there. Does the necessary information in your business flow efficiently? This can affect not just the cost of your service but customer satisfaction as well. If provide customers information when and how they need it, their satisfaction will increase.
4. Market Efficiently. To be efficient, you need to determine the ROI of your marketing effort. If you do not have good measures on your use of media, get them immediately. We just finished a project for a client, which measures the effectiveness of media distribution for public service announcements, so they can measure the return on their distribution and production costs. The data unique visualizations we are adding to this project is making the story clearer than ever for our client’s customers, and letting them understand their data better than they could before.
5. Do what you do best but be effective in what you outsource. In order to be effective in outsourcing, you must be first know what that outsourced function is. Outsourcing a process which is not clear to you, is an invitation for ending up with something you either did not need or is not delivered efficiently. We want our clients to know what choices are made and why so they have valid expectations of what can be accomplished. At the same time, our size and structure lets us create enterprise level solutions on a SMB budget, making a more level playing field for our clients.