Web 2.0. Social media. New media. Join the conversation.
Whatever you want to call it, there is a big shift happening on the internet. Instead of just consuming information, more and more online users are become publishers.
Web 2.0 sites like forums, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube attract many amateur publishers. Also, these sites are taking away eyeballs from mainstream media sites like Yahoo, New York Times, and MSN.com.
In the rush to get the attention of these web 2.0 users, companies are posting in forums, commenting on blogs, creating Facebook pages, and producing YouTube videos.
There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, companies that do participate on web 2.0 sites have an advantage over companies that don’t. However, many of these companies don’t have a blog. This leaves money on the table, because in the long-term, it’s more effective to send Web 2.0 users to a blog rather than to a business home page.
Web 2.0 users are usually not in a buying frame of mind, so sending them to a sales page will not give you a high conversion rate. However, if you send them to your blog, you’ll enjoy these benefits.
- You’ll start building a good reputation because your blog provides free, useful information on a consistent basis.
- Web 2.0 users will be impressed with your company since most business sites don’t have a blog. Having a blog shows them that you understand the importance of web 2.0.
- You will get useful feedback through blog comments.
- Over time, as visitors read your blog, many of them will trust you enough to subscribe to your RSS feed or your email list. This subscription lets you communicate and sell to them over and over again.
