Social Web Report

The social web can be a confusing realm for the business considering using it to market its messages, ideas, products or services. And no wonder, it’s a very broad cross-section of the internet with surrounding edges which are large and grey. So in order to understand it and exploit it I divide it up and categorise it.

The point of the social web is that it empowers individuals enabling a free flow of information (via cheap digital distribution) between all members of a community. This vastly reduces the power imbalance enjoyed by established media businesses forcing them (if they wish to continue selling in the way they do) to listen to individuals and communicate on a more intimate level.

To this end businesses now need to find ways of using popular web features to exchange with their customers. So, they should visualise two things:

• Content
• Platform

CONTENT

Businesses have always created content in their marketing, but now they should create digital content by listening to their customers or community. Larry Weber says in his recent book ‘Marketing to the Social Web‘, that ‘Marketing to the Social Web is not about getting your story out, it’s about your customers.” All content, no matter in what form, should be focused solely on the customer. Content can come in a variety of forms:

• Text (blogs, website copy)
• Audio (podcasts, audio files)
• Video (videocasts, video files)

Social web marketing begins with the customer, and a business idea, message, product or service. In order to sell it they have to create that content in such a way that people want to consume it. The more compelling the content the more people are likely to seek it out and therefore the more popularity the creator will gain. And so the greater they chance they have of selling a message etc.

PLATFORM

It sounds daft to even write this, but Platforms differ from Content in that they are platforms for content. Whereas Content can be dressed up in an infinite number of ways to appeal to customers, Platforms are a conduit for more straightforward conversations with customers. Businesses may simply create discussions in order to inform about a product or ask questions to get feedback. They may take many forms, including:

• Social networking sites
• Forums
• Wikis

Platforms enable a business or agency to interact directly with a community. They can either create their own platform (these could be custom-built, or paid-for enterprise level, or simply free-hosted application, such as Ning, ProBoards or Wikidot) or establish a presence on an existing network (eg. Facebook, LinedIn etc).

Content and Platform both offer the business a means to connect to communities. But there are other steps which need to be fulfilled before the marketing cycle is complete:

THREE STEPS IN MARKETING

I visualise the process of marketing to the social web in three steps:

1. Content creation (you gotta make it before you can ’sell’ it)
2. Optimise that content (tweak it so it’s visible to its intended community)
3. Market the content (get linking, connecting, pushing, selling)

There’s much more to say on this, but I’ll continue in another post.