We’re on the bandwagon

With my company’s recent launch of a web 2.0 community portal, www.mycadmash.com, I thought I would take this opportunity to share some thoughts on web 2.0 from a marketing perspective. Why not? Everyone else is. I mean, it is the hottest buzz word, right?

It seems that this ambiguous term has begun to permeate every advertising and PR agency's board room, and rightfully so. But how much do the heavy-hitters in technology marketing really understand about web 2.0? How much does anyone understand about it, or are we simply seeking to find a one-word definition to encapsulate what seems to me to be the very nature of human behavior in the presence of an unbridled communication and information world?

A couple of things I do know. Web 2.0 is not a new venue for advertising. Online advertising, e-mail advertising, even forum sponsorship and moderating, are all forms of e-media that play a part in web 2.0, but they don’t define it. For that matter, nor does blogging or video blogging define web 2.0. Again, these are aspects of effective communication within a web 2.0 culture.

And that word, culture, really is the essence of web 2.0. When considering a marketing strategy in web 2.0, approach it as though you were entering a foreign market with your domestic product. Everything has to be reconsidered, from the language and customs to the common methods of communication in that country. Web 2.0 is a new way of human behavior where limitless information is demanded, censorship is taboo, and hype is an archaic language that society has all but forgotten how to interpret.

Using mycadmash.com as an example, the concept is simple. We provide a community, you (as a so-called advertiser to the members) participate as one of them. Become their peer. Admit product faults, and offer real solutions. Banner ads that pray for clicks and try to ‘covert’ have no place in a culture where people buy from people they know and trust.