How to Best Use Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is more a concept than an actual thing, but it is still changing the way online business is done, just as the assembly line concept transformed the industrial world. It's defined this simply: while the original Internet was used as a delivery method for primarily one-way communications, Web 2.0 provides users with a way to talk back. Those who are on the road to internet success know that Web 2.0 is all about the audience acting up during the show, rather than sit around as passive recipients of information.

This has advertisers everywhere in a panic. For hundreds of years, they have worked within a paradigm where they deliver advertisements and marketing messages to the consumer's eyes, and said consumer passively laps it up while consuming whatever is being sold. This world has been turned upside down. Now users are creating their own commercials, parodic and otherwise, to post on YouTube. News organizations are reluctantly posting the instant comments of readers. Bad products are complained about by vocal consumers. And everywhere, sales are - up.

That's right, letting the consumers have a voice has increased, not decreased, sales. That's because the smart marketers adapted to the new paradigm and found ways to get consumers to help build content, sell product, and perform as part of the marketing team. But how can you do it yourself as your move down the road to internet success?

Start by looking at the way money is made on Web 2.0. YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook are all prominent players, and except for Wikipedia make money on PPC advertisement off user-created content (Wiki refuses to take money for advertising, but thousands of entrepreneurs scrape their content and make plenty of money advertising on content created by Wiki users.)

A simple forum is a good way for those on the road to internet success to capitalize on this. Just create a space and build an audience by targeting an untargeted niche. Advertisement run here can bring you a decent income if you have an enthusiastic and well-behaved online mob. You can also use it to make affiliate sales through big players like Amazon.com or through smaller niche industries that cater to your audience.

Those who are on the road to internet success realize that with a great forum, blog, or other space open to a community of users, you can also build great traffic flow to your site. You do this by drawing Google attention through a well-keyworded blog, by encouraging your forum rats to talk about your site and link back to it, and by simply advertising on other community sites. With a small community of enthusiasts, a great site can quickly gain good market share.

If you want to capitalize on Web 2.0, change the way you think about users. Your community is, in a very real way, your marketing team. Use them, make them love you, and build an online empire with the new media. They can move you forward down the road to internet success.

To your internet marketing success!