Origins, Facts, and Fiction about Web 2.0 and Online Strategy – Part Two

Just what the heck is Online Strategy? Do you need it? Are you good at it? Do you sell it? Do you buy it?

Sure, you can plan it or have someone else plan it for you. It’s like any other advertising strategy, only for the web. A company can help put together your business motto and logo, set you up with newspaper and magazine ads, paid articles, highway billboards, and TV and Radio spots. They can get you in the business section or on the front-page, or get you on a talk show. They can coach you or hire a spokesperson for your business.

Or perhaps you are clever enough to do all or some of that yourself. Some people can because they are quite crafty. Either way, it will take time and money. But unless you have TONS of money from the start, or you are the darling of your social club, an overnight success by way of marketing and/or advertising is not a common event. It depends on being at the right place at the right time with the right thing that people want. And you know how people are: You don’t.

It’s like everything else. If you’ve got something people will love, you need to get the word out, no doubt. Edison had to take his invention somewhere. (Okay, I know he didn’t invent the electric light bulb…) But the questions you need to ask yourselves are:

A. What do I offer?
B. Who’s my target audience (readers, viewers, buyers)?
C. If it succeeds, can I support the demand?
D. How much time do I devote to this on the web?

Entrepreneurs struggle with this the most, I think, because they are trying to run a business while wearing all the hats. Social networking alone can take up an entire day. It’s more work than cold-calling, because you can schedule your out-calls to 20 minutes a day and move on to other stuff. Online, if indeed you are interacting, engaging and responding to people, you might get stuck there for a while. That’s why some companies have Social Networking departments now. That’s also why gurus come along throwing seminars at you, hopefully making you cross-eyed enough to sign up for their services. They will handle all your Web 2.0 Social Networking Online Strategy needs. Which is fine. But are they engaged in it successfully themselves? Or do they know just enough to be dangerous? Obviously, advertising agencies don’t run commercials like Coca Cola ™ because they work behind the scenes for the client (like Coca Cola ™).

BUT… You should find out:

• Who are their clients?
• What industries are they good at promoting?
• Have they taken something from weak to profitable?
• Or do they pass the buck because it’s really all up to you? (Did they take on your crummy product and you expected miracles?)
• Do they claim to know HOW to make something happen and yet have no such thing to prove they can do it?

Let’s take viral videos for example. What is a viral video and why the heck would someone want or need a viral video? Marketing your business is one. Getting views (so you can get paid for them) is another. But there are two kinds of viral videos. Yup. One is “organic” and the other is “synthetic.” Unless you know that, it doesn’t matter. Once you know that, it will matter, depending on what your business is.

Viral means the online video file gets forwarded on to others and/or watched many times over, most likely on or through a hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo. There are dozens of video hosting sites, but those two are probably the best known.

If you are a YouTube Partner (which means you make popular videos and YouTube pays you), you have to be consistent with your video programming or no one will ever come back. Just a one-off video that gets 10,000 views will hardly prompt YouTube to offer you a partnership. But even one popular video can help you – sure, if it’s meaningful and brings you business. People who believe that it’s all a numbers game and only care that the file is passed along, no matter how insidiously it’s done, don’t realize the ineffectiveness of this synthetic viral method UNLESS view counts make you money. They’re posted in other people’s blogs, forums, Google Groups, Facebook Groups. They’re sent using spam email broadcasts, and so on. They’re set on other channel users’ rotation playlists, or posted as a response to other users’ videos (regardless if their video is relevant). Some popular bloggers accept bribes to post “viral videos.”

So, is that bad? I can’t answer that for you. What’s your goal? To get viewers – as many eyeballs as possible? How does that help you? Synthetic virals never get watched all the way through, which is why they are made to be VERY SHORT. People won’t put up with a video they didn’t ask to see. So, it better be a damned great video, because most folks already hate you for getting it in their email.

Of course, you can use all sorts of methods to boost your Social Networking on the Web 2.0. If you have the money, you can hire starving bloggers to write articles for $10-15 a piece. You can pay people to kick your stuff up onto Digg and Delicious. Did you REALLY think all those top-selling “gurus” sit around typing catchy articles every day?

But better yet, and because you want things to be automated, “bots” are the way to go. Want your YouTube video seen? Use a bot. (Just google “bots for YouTube” and pick one. I won’t advise you on which ones to use.) The same applies to just about every Social Networking site to gain friends, fans, followers, and viewers. It’s all there, free to research. No magic, no mystery, no classes to take. Reading is all that’s required. Fortunately for Social Networking gurus, most people who want to make a million dollars overnight do not like to read.

Most of all, what’s really so special about Social Networking, is that it’s a mighty database culled from billions of logged in users. Thus the internet has become very efficient in targeting better online ads to people. These days, Web 2.0 is fairly close to speaking directly at you and me. Some ads even say, “Ron, we have the perfect [whatever] for you!!” It’s all very creepy, but advertisers easily get info from what you post on Facebook in comments, “likes,” and stuff from your profile pages. Lucky for the marketing world, not everyone blocks internet tracking cookies. These stay on your machine for YEARS, patiently learning about what you prefer and don’t prefer in life, so they can market TO you more personally, with better results.

So, in that sense, if you want the very most people to see your spammy ad and spammy viral video, it’s not all that difficult to set up. There’s a sucker born every day, as PT Barnum once said. If that’s your customer base, go for it. I just won’t be seeing it.