How to Use Web 2.0 Technology for Your Business

Web 2.0 technology is built around user interaction and online communities. It encompasses social networks like Facebook, video sharing sites like YouTube, social bookmarking and filtering sites like Digg and Reddit, wikis, blogs and microblogging (Twitter), and marketplaces like eBay and Craig's List. Modern businesses that succeed on the web do so by making use of the more interactive nature of the online experience. New businesses such as Threadless have become wildly popular by embracing and profiting from the move towards user-generated content and crowdsourcing. If you are not familiar with web 2.0 technology, read about the basics on Wikipedia, which itself is an excellent example of the power of crowdsourcing.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Invite users to interact on your website using multiple types of Web 2.0 technology. Create an online community built around your business. Encourage comments, user-submitted views, add forums and chat boxes, and encourage all kinds of user-generated content that is relevant to your business, or even the core of your business. The t-shirt company Threadless has done very well by have its users submit t-shirt designs, then vote on the best ones. That way the company knows that it is only producing designs they people want. They sell out of every design they make.

2. Add videos to your website and invite your users to upload videos and images, too. Search engines give more weight to pages with videos. How-To videos are especially popular.

3. Start a blog if you can keep it updated at least a few times a week. If you have employees, encourage them to blog. People want to know about the businesses they're interested in, and they expect a constant flow of information.

4. Use Facebook. Even CEOs of more traditional companies are now recognizing Facebook as essential to 21st century business models.

5. Join Twitter, the premier microblogging site. Use it to update your followers on company news, and encourage them to contact you through Twitter. Follow everyone who follows you. For more information on how to use Twitter effectively, see the Resources section for a link to the article, "How to Use Twitter in Your Social Networking Strategy."

6. Put social networking widgets on your website, so people can use sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati and Delicious to share your site.

7. Consider whether branching out into places such as MySpace and Second Life are right for your business. If you are an artist, MySpace may be a great place to generate interest. If you have products to sell or you are trying to build an international brand with a target audience in their 30s, Second Life may make sense for you.

8. Study popular web sites that use Web 2.0 technology most effectively, like the Best of Show winners at the SXSW Web Awards.

9. Watch videos from Web 2.0 conferences, where people on the cutting edge discuss current and upcoming technologies. Even if the videos are a year old, chances are that many of the things discussed are only now beginning to be adopted.

Resources

• SXSW Best of Show Web Awards Winners
• Web 2.0 Summit Videos
• How to Use Twitter in Your Social Networking Strategy
• Wikinomics

[sonni57]

on 4/1/2009 Good info on Web 2.0 technology I use it too.

[ethoslogos]

on 3/16/2009 Super article on how to use Web 2.0 Technology for Your Business. Your advice is current and excellent and you provide a valuable education for businesses that haven't yet used Web 2.0 technologies. Great job!