Most of us have heard the term Web 2.0 somewhere, it is one of those buzzwords that pop up from time to time, but what exactly is it and what does it have to do with electronics specialty retailers? Maybe everything.
What is Web 2.0?
The answer could probably fill a book, filled with words that I can barely pronounce much less spell, but I'll give you the basic description from Tim O'Reilly himself (the man who first coined the term): "[In Web 2.0] the cardinal rule is this one: Users add value. Figuring out how to build databases that get better the more people use them, is actually the secret sauce of every (successful) Web 2.0 company".
Web 2.0 is much more than a page on your computer screen. It's interactive, it's a conversation, it's alive!
There are countless examples of of Web 2.0 which include blogging, social networking sites and more, if you search the internet you'll find tons of them but I'm going to outline the 3 most popular sites; Youtube, MySpace & Facebook.
First, take a look at a chart from Alexa.com where these websites rank nationally among all websites:
The 3 sites have ranked as 3 of the top ten sites in terms of traffic in the US over the last 6 months. In fact, YouTube has ranked 3rd behind Google and Yahoo (both search engines) for much of the time period outlined in the chart above.To put that into perspective on March 31, 2008 it was estimated that there were 1.4 billion internet users globally. If you go back to alexa.com again and put "youtube.com" in the search box and then click on the "overview" link
for youtube and then "traffic details" you will see thatthe past 3 month average of GLOBAL INTERNET USERS THAT
VISIT YOUTUBE is 18.647%.
Let me do the math...that's 262,498,465.8 people VISIT YOUTUBE!!!!
Here's what I find amazing, the car stereo video was uploaded 5 months ago and has over 5200 views, plus this is only one of a series of 14 videos that he's uploaded. The fella showing off his Viper car alarm in his video was uploaded 11 months ago and has been viewed a whopping 45, 000 times!!!
YouTube.com
Take a look at the video's I've embedded below.
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Here's what I find amazing, the car stereo video was uploaded 5 months ago and has over 5200 views, plus this is only one of a series of 14 videos that he's uploaded. The fella showing off his Viper car alarm in his video was uploaded 11 months ago and has been viewed a whopping 45, 000 times!!!
MySpace
The social networking powerhouse that gives you the opportunity to upload music, pictures, videos, blogs themes...with the endless amount of 3rd party software available and the simple way that it can be updated it can become a showcase for your business. Take a look at RIX Magazines MySpace page:
Here's the really cool thing about MySpace...you can go out and get all the friends you want by asking people to be your friends. With 3rd party software like FriendBlasterPro, you can target your friend finder by sex, age, location and how often they log on to their MySpace page. You can narrow your search to your target market, let's say male, 18 -34 years old, NYC area, logged on ot MySpace within the last 30 days and contact them by the hundreds...do that with the yellow pages!
Rix Mag sends out info for everyone of their events, with over 6,500 friends on MySpace they are able to send out reminders to each of them like this one below:
Do you think that's not strong? Ask Rico from RIX Magazine about the turn out for his events. How would your business benefit from a sales campaign if you were able to contact 10,000 individuals in your target market that live in immediate area?
Facebook
This has the least apparent business use capability but considering vast amount of traffic Facebook receives, it shouldn't be overlooked. With MySpace you would want to collect as many friends as possible, conversely with Facebook it more about connecting with people that you actually know. It's more quality and less quantity. One area electronics specialist uses it to keep in touch with key customers and has started a fan club for his customers to opt into. Facebook's best use for business might to be used in conjunction with other Web 2.0 websites such as blogging, podcasting or "Twittering". Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
Here's the key to using Web 2.0 with your business, it's being active. It's being part of the community, contributing and interacting within the community, adding value, the more you do this the healthier your online presence will be. Is all of this work? Anything of value usually is, but the internet is here to stay and if business isn't what it used to be, then it's time to make some changes.
A drunk was crawling about on the sidewalk under a lamppost at night.
A Police Officer came up to him and inquired, “What are you doing?”
The drunk replied, “I’m looking for my car keys.”
The Officer looked around in the lamplight, then asked the drunk, “I don’t see any car keys. Are you sure you lost them here?”
The drunk replied, “No, I lost them over there”, and pointed to an area of the sidewalk deep in shadow.
The policeman then asked, “Well, if you lost them over there, why are you looking over here?”
The drunk looked at him and said, “Because the light is better over here.”
Are you looking in the right place for your customers?
