Remember when the end of the year was a s-l-o-w time for the staffing and professional services industry? No? Good for you. That means you have been making the very most of end-of-year transitions to finish well and prepare for a new year of opportunities. As you begin that effort, your friends at ClearEdge Marketing have a few end-of-year tips to help you prime your 2010 marketing and sales game.

Five Pre-2010 Marketing Musts

1. Clean Your Prospect List. From Jill Ruiz, ClearEdge Senior Project Manager.
A good or mediocre prospect list is a weakness for any business today. Strengthen your database by ensuring it is a vetted and targeted list of prospective clients that are well worth marketing to. The time you save your sales staff on pursuing poor leads is extremely valuable. The money you save by ensuring marketing programs aren’t pushed out to the wrong contacts is precious. And the more time you focus on strong, qualified leads, the greater your chances are of winning new business. Here are three ways to ensure your prospect list remains lean and effective throughout 2010:

• Purge and update. Get rid of all outdated, inaccurate addresses. Involve your sales team in the clean-up and make it an ongoing effort that is part of your sales process throughout the year.

• Build it out. Grow your list by adding qualified leads from conferences you’ve attended, events you’ve hosted and other networking events and opportunities. Rented lists can also be a good way to enhance your current prospect list.

• Maintain, maintain, maintain. Schedule list clean-up days consistently and in advance to ensure useless addresses are weeded out. Once you’ve implemented multiple list-building tactics, regularly evaluate those investments and their return to determine whether eliminations are required.

2. Leverage Social Media. From Lia Pinto, ClearEdge Social Media Coordinator.
According to Forrester Research, 73% of Internet users worldwide have at least one social media account. Your clients, your candidates and the people you want as clients and candidates are networking, learning and socializing through social media channels in greater numbers. 2010 is not the year to fall behind in the continuous communication evolution. What do you do to keep pace with the social media movement?

• Appoint a person or build a social networking committee. Once you’ve decided to build a social media presence, hold someone accountable. Start with those in your organization who are already familiar with and frequenting social media sites. Identify internal team members who can help contribute content, keep up with networks on a regular basis and watch for information being shared about your business and industry across social networks. And remember-by listening to your clients and peers you will learn how to engage/relate with them.

• Set reasonable, strategic goals. Start slowly and strategically by defining your audience and determining which social media tools and sites your business can leverage with ongoing success. Create a presence on networks where your audience “hangs out.” For example: Are they reading blogs? Do they keep up with Twitter? Do they share content on Digg? Are they viewing videos on YouTube? Are they on Facebook or LinkedIn? ROI for social media should also be different; it depends on what type of interaction you’re looking for and can be different with each organization, industry or social network. Additionally, ROI should not just be monetary, it should be measured “socially” as well.

• Be realistic. When it comes to social media, don’t spread your business too thin. It’s better to become the master of one or two social media sites than to sporadically and half-heartedly post content in five or six places and hope for results. Besides being realistic, also be transparent. Organizations present in social networks need to be truthful and attentive by responding to questions and comments and learning from suggestions and criticism.

3. Review Sales Processes for 2010. From Kathy Dooley, ClearEdge Marketing Director.
Forward-thinking organizations are preparing for the upswing of the market by optimizing their sales processes. Here’s what you can do:

• Examine sales capabilities. Are your sales team and selling approach aligned with how customers buy? Does your staff have the knowledge and tools needed to differentiate you from the competition? Look for gaps in skills and knowledge and find ways to rectify talent and knowledge issues. The beginning of the year is a crucial sales period and you need to have the best team, right from the start.

• Bring process discipline to your sales organization. If the sales process is not clearly mapped out for sales teams, define and map it now. It’s critical to competitive survival today to have a high-performing sales team that management can monitor and support. Without defined sales processes, it’s almost impossible to know how effectively teams are networking and selling.

4. Polish Your Web Site. From Krzysztof Pabian, ClearEdge Creative Director-Multimedia.
To make certain your number one marketing tool is inviting and can deliver bottom-line business results, you don’t need to break the bank. The following small investments in your Web site are worth every penny because they drive traffic and help bring business to you:

• Check the content. A careful sweep will ensure that your business’ messages are strong, clear, appealing and up-to-date. When’s the last time you posted a press release or event? Have you integrated your social media presence into your site? When kept current, your Web site shows visitors what a relevant and credible force your business is. A simple test: What year is your copyright line? We actually see sites with 2006!

• Check your design. Does your site load quickly? Look good on any browser (don’t forget to test Safari and mobile applications!)? If not, visitors could be leaving as soon as they see it. Now’s the time to ensure your site design echoes your brand and company character, and doesn’t get in the way of the site’s functionality.

• Put yourself at the top of the list. Search engine optimization (SEO) will help you achieve strong Internet accessibility. If you haven’t invested in SEO, now is the time. It means the difference between showing up on page one of a Google search, and showing up on page four. Quick fixes: Add title tags to every page and be sure to include meta tag descriptions! Oh, and is your URL registered on sites such as Google and Bing?

5. Get “Creative.” From Jessica Castaneda, ClearEdge Marketing Director.
In our daily dealings with professional services and staffing firms, the ClearEdge team often hears clients say “Once we’re in front of clients, we always win the business. The tricky part is getting in front of them.” What are some of the best ideas for getting in front of prospects for the New Year?

• Use the power and accessibility of the Web. Webinars are an increasingly popular means of sharing expertise and thought leadership in a non-salesy, easily accessible manner. Prospects that may not be open to face-to-face meetings, may be willing to listen in on an informative Webinar as they eat their lunch. As long as the material is relevant and timely and you market your event appropriately, you are sure to gain the audience you seek. For additional credibility, consider teaming up with an association that caters to your target market. Associations are always on the lookout for educational content for their constituency. They may be willing to co-host such events and market them to their membership.

• Form networking groups. Unlike social media sites, networking groups enable you to build long-term relationships with clients and prospects using face-to-face interactions. Building an intimate networking group that enables peers-such as CIOs or CEOs-to share ideas, best practices and lessons learned will position you as an industry insider and trusted partner.

• Prepare to launch a Target Account Program (TAP). A TAP allows your business to rapidly increase awareness and create new business opportunities by honing in on a targeted group of well-researched prospective clients. Properly implemented, a TAP will enable you to increase sales activity and-most importantly-set new appointments!

“Out with the old and in with the new.” You often hear this as the New Year approaches. At ClearEdge Marketing, we say “In with the programs and processes that work,”-be they new best practices or old ones-and out with those that haven’t shown a proper return! The real key to success is taking time to prepare your marketing and sales strategy, and that time is now. Welcome to 2010, the prelude. Be sure and make the most of it.

Leslie Vickrey
President & Founder
ClearEdge Marketing

Many an IT services company has felt flummoxed by social media and how to take advantage of its diverse capabilities. After watching B2C businesses convert social media marketing efforts into wild successes-think about the forums and blogs dedicated to tech gadgets you love, cars you want and the music you listen to-B2B businesses have been working to generate the same level of marketplace engagement and fan frenzy.

On November 10, ClearEdge Marketing was delighted to host a Webinar on social media and its marketing applications to an audience of TechServe Alliance members. From business owners and presidents to sales, recruiting and marketing professionals, attendees were there to learn how their businesses can use social media to engage clients, prospects and candidates. As presenter, I was challenged to make the content useful to social media neophytes and enthusiasts alike.

Well I like a challenge, and I think the Webinar we came up with did a good job of explaining the fundamental value of social media to businesses today and how to put the tools to work. For ClearEdge (we are a B2B company too), social media has become a way to continuously underscore and share the knowledge, value and hard work of our team through Facebook/LinkedIn postings, tweets and blog entries (that’s right, you’re in our social media Web right now). Our whole staff is out there interacting in the marketplace, and that is expanding our reach and the market’s understanding of our skills, experience, resources and expertise.

For IT services and staffing firms, social media offers numerous ways to do the very same-share knowledge, engage with clients, prospects and candidates and build a captive, vocal base of fans. And while it’s easy to see why Apple, Applebee’s and even Fiona Apple have fans and followers, several industry professionals have asked me what the value of a fan base is for an IT services firm. I encourage clients to see a fan base as a way of momentarily giving your company Star Trek-like capabilities to beam valuable and welcome knowledge directly into someone’s world. Do it well, and those fans will leverage the insights you’ve provided, share them with an even wider audience and praise your brand across their expanding networks.

To learn more about the core value of social media marketing, current trends and successful approaches, I invite you to review my full Webinar presentation online here as well as the transcripts of our event Q&A session, which can be found below. I also encourage you to see the results of the polls we conducted during the Webinar of IT service industry attendees, which you can find on our Facebook and LinkedIn pages. I think you will find it interesting to see how your peers are feeling about and using the tools today.

With social media, there is always more to learn, so I encourage you to share your insights and perspective by comment or tweet. We are big “fans” of learning, engagement and lively debate at ClearEdge Marketing.

Social Media Webinar Q&A

If I have multiple social media accounts (i.e. LinkedIn and Facebook), should I list all of them in my e-mail signature or focus on only one?

• a. You should include all icons in the signature and hyperlink to profiles. See the screenshot below for an example of how to do it without clutter. 

Does it take a specialist to build social media pages and profiles?

• a. Not at all. Setting up a profile on LinkedIn and Twitter or a Page or Group on Facebook is easy work. Our Webinar presentation (posted here) includes some tips and best practices you can follow as you do it. In addition, each site provides a step-by-step wizard that makes building profiles and pages quite simple. However, if you don’t have the staff and bandwidth or want to create more elaborate profiles with custom graphics and coding, outsourcing is certainly an option.

What is the difference between a ‘friend’ and ‘fan’ on Facebook?

• a. A friend is someone within your personal profile while a fan is for company (or organization) pages.

Is Twitter effective for posting job openings only or should we add other content?

• a. We suggest tweeting a mix of both job openings and content relevant to your Twitter followers. Try not to tweet about ‘what are you doing,’ but rather what great content or information ‘has your attention.’ For example, tweet about industry information/insights/stats that you stumble upon throughout your day or events that may be of interest to your audience. Request feedback about industry news and information you post. And when tweeting a link (or URL), always send a question or explain what your link refers to.

If you have multiple offices, is it better to have one corporate Facebook profile or separate corporate and office pages?

• a. I think having one corporate Facebook Page (or profile) that is central to your organization is important. This is where you can concentrate company-wide information, press releases, events, photos, videos, etc. And if you want a place to share local information relevant to only a particular office, you can create Groups for offices and list them on the main corporate Facebook page. A good example can be seen on Spherion’s Facebook page. They have a main corporate Page and created Groups for several of their local offices, including them in a separate tab on their corporate Page (see screenshots below). This provides the best of both worlds and centralizes it in one place as well.

 How do you find enough content to share with your audience?

• a. Besides your company’s news (press releases, events, photos, videos), you can also keep your audience informed of industry news, statistics, conferences and events. Good, useful information is what keeps your fans and followers engaged and paying attention.

You can keep yourself up-to-date with industry news by subscribing to blogs, using RSS feeds and visiting industry publications online. You can then share links and insights to your fan base and followers as long as you are always attributing the content to its original source. When you share third-party content you must always follow Fair Use and Copyright laws and you need to clearly identify the source of your information as you see in the Twitter feed example below. 

Leslie Vickrey
President & Founder
ClearEdge Marketing

As we’ve entered the age of social networking, Facebook continues to garner attention – but it’s Twitter that now dominates the headlines, both offline and online. It seems that everyone is “Twittering” – from Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey, Whole Foods and Best Buy to your next door neighbor and local small business owner. In fact, in 2008 there were an estimated six million Twitter users in the U.S., with a projected 18.1 million users in 2010, according to eMarketer. Twitter also grew 1,382% year-over-year in February as reported by Nielsen Online.

Defining Twitter
While these figures are impressive, you may be wondering what exactly Twitter is and why it is important to you. Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows people to post news and other important events to their group of followers. It enables your followers to be “in the know” on the latest developments with you/your company. It also allows you to more easily identify trends – which, in turn, will help you sell more. Users create an account, set up their profile and have 140 characters of text per “tweet” (aka post) to highlight a certain topic or news article/event. 

With Twitter, you establish an online community of people whom you connect with (follow) and/or they follow you. In Facebook they’re called “friends” or “fans,” in Twitter they’re called “followers.” Your followers will also have their group of followers, and so on and so on.  Those that Twitter engage in viral marketing every minute – all it takes is an interesting/relevant tweet for another person to republish it to their followers (this is called re-tweeting). As you imagine, a good tweet can be spread around the world in a matter of minutes.

At the end of the day, Twitter is an effective and efficient communication tool that enables businesses to join in the conversation and engage directly with their clients/prospects, the media and other key audiences. You can hear what other people are saying (or not saying) about your brand and other issues that matter to you. Remember, even if you ignore Twitter, those conversations will take place without you.

Beyond the Twitter Hype: 5 Tips to Getting Started
Before your business joins the conversation on Twitter, here are five etiquette tips that are important to know.

1. Define your strategy
Like you do for any campaign, you need to define your approach and strategy. What are you looking to accomplish by having an account on Twitter? Who is your target audience? If you have multiple reasons for establishing a Twitter account (i.e. customer support, brand awareness, public relations, humanizing your brand), you may want to look at creating different Twitter accounts for each area of focus.

For instance, Kelly Services has 15 different Twitter accounts; whereas Technisource has one, but does an excellent job at leveraging Twitter. In fact, Technisource appears to be the only IT staffing-related Twitter account that is really using Twitter to engage its audience. Their tweets are relevant, user-focused and insightful. In case you’re wondering what they’re saying, here’s an example: Jump-starting a tech job search | Career Advice - InfoWorld - http://tinyurl.com/cfhzav. 

Regardless of the number of accounts, make sure that you have consistent messaging and branding. As a reminder, Twitter should be just one component of your integrated marketing strategy, which should include other social media marketing tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

2. Be transparent
Companies should tweet as individuals. Be candid, be real. Twitter provides an opportunity for your followers to get to know more about your company – but most importantly about you. Your tweets demonstrate your ability to understand their needs and concerns – and that you are looking out ahead of the curve to help address and solve those needs. Your tweets should detail different areas of your life – not just work or business-related items. Like everything, do it in moderation – sprinkle some personal tweets throughout your regular tweets.

3. Join in the conversation
While following key people within your industry/areas of interest is a must, don’t just sit on the sidelines and listen in on the comments being said about your company or a topic of interest. Get into the conversation – especially if there are comments about you or your company. One of the key things with Twitter is to not only get engaged, but be real in your tweets. People want to hear what you have to say.

4. Add value
At the end of the day, people are interested in “what’s in it for me?” Make sure that your tweets are customer-centric – not self-promoting and self-serving. While it’s okay to have a few tweets that promote your business, too many and you will lose followers. Your tweets should focus on the needs/interests of your followers; after all they are following you for a reason.

5. Tweet frequently
In today’s busy world, front-of-mind awareness is everything. Like everything else, the more you put into it – the more you get out of it. The more tweets you have, the more likely you are to gain new followers. Good news is that you can leverage technology to reduce the amount of time it takes to make a tweet so you can post multiple tweets each day or week, whatever your preference.

Once you start Twittering, you will begin to wonder how you lived without having instant access to relevant, pertinent information. Next month we’ll address some next steps that you can take to make your tweets as relevant as possible. In the meantime, have additional tips or thoughts? Let me know. Or you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/elizabethsmith.

Elizabeth Smith
Director of Social Media Marketing
ClearEdge Marketing

So what’s all the buzz over social media? Speak to anyone in marketing these days and chances are that you’ve heard the term “social media.” But what exactly is it? Wikipedia defines social media as “primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.” The tools range from social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon to targeted blogs, communities and user forums. What makes these tools different is that the actual content created on them is often user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Social Media Observances
In speaking with several clients from different industries, we’re seeing more and more companies interested in harnessing the power of social media - specifically Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  Social media is rapidly becoming the new marketing communications tool for companies to reach and build relationships with candidates, job seekers and clients alike. It’s a way to differentiate themselves and stand out in today’s saturated online marketplace where everyone has a Web site.

Companies have successfully leveraged social media to increase their brand awareness, and ultimately sales, by generating interest and gaining constant attention to their brand. One such way a company capitalized upon this fast and growing free marketing tool was to promote its first annual tradeshow via Facebook. The results: tripled the expected attendance! Upon analyzing clients’ Web analytics, I’ve also seen social media sites generate referring traffic for a company’s Web site.

Facebook: The Most Popular Social Networking Tool
Many of our clients get their first taste of social media by creating a profile page on the popular social networking site Facebook. It is rapidly becoming the most popular social networking site, with 600,000 new users being added each day. With minimal associated costs, Facebook serves as a great stepping stone that allows each client to express their brand in an edgier, more targeted approach. It enables companies to speak directly to job seekers and candidates, as well as provide their targeted audience the opportunity to provide feedback or input on a specific topic/item. Facebook also allows the opportunity for our clients to expand and build upon their page as the page gains more traction or as more tools/resources become available – in essence creating a microsite.

Get On Board
So what are you waiting for? Jump into the social media world with a Facebook profile page for your company and start forging those online relationships. But before jumping in, make sure that you understand your target audience’s needs and interests so you can feature the right information that resonates with them. Already launched a Facebook profile page for your company? Share your story with us.

Elizabeth Smith
Director of Social Media Marketing
ClearEdge Marketing

With the current economic turmoil, many companies are turning inward and holding on to their cash reserves. While it’s always wise to be shrewd with your money—regardless of how the economy is fairing—the old adage “you need to spend money to make money” still holds true.

The good news is that there are tactics you can employ that will have a minimal cost associated with them—but will produce great returns, build your brand and increase your lead generation efforts. In fact, if done right, the ROI from employing all of these tactics will only continue to improve over time. So just what are these tactics?

1. Incorporate search engine optimization (SEO) best practices
Today, more than ever, we’re inundated with so many messages that when people need to search for something, they just Google it. Making sure your company ranks high in organic search results doesn’t happen magically—nor does it happen overnight. But it can happen. The outcome—a flood of new, and possibly returning, visitors to your site—and therefore, more revenue.

These best practices range from keyword research and incorporating the keywords that resonate with your audience across all mediums to confirming your site structure is search-engine friendly and using correct programming code to draw the right attention to keywords on your page.

2. Improve your Web site
Amidst some speculation out there, content is STILL king. Review your site’s content. Does it resonate with your target audience? Is it up to date? Is it Web-friendly? Does it have a call to action on each page? Beef up and revise content as needed, making sure that you incorporate applicable keywords as part of your SEO strategy.

Also, understand the behavior of your Web site visitor by analyzing your site’s traffic. Once you see a trend or a pattern, take steps to remedy any glaring problems so that your visitors will stay on your site longer.

3. Create a blog
Remembering that content is king, producing a blog with targeted posts focused on key industry topics is a guaranteed win-win-win. Your target audience will gain insight and be able to share their comments about that posting.

At the same time, you will be able to leverage its content across multiple marketing mediums. These mediums can range from e-newsletters as part of a Target Account Program (TAP), Facebook and Twitter, to providing you the option of sending clients/prospects a link to a blog posting highlighting the sales point you’re addressing. Your company will also be able to demonstrate its expertise on select topics and, when done right, it will also help you to become a recognized industry resource. The days of long white papers have been replaced with informative blog posts and shorter articles focusing on key business-related topics.

Lastly, the search engines will associate this relevant content to your company when people are searching for topics related to your post—thus helping you increase in the search engine rankings (in other words, appear higher on the list).

4. Implement a linking strategy
People are short on time and new products and information are rolled out every hour. Unless you’re Microsoft or Coca-Cola, not everyone knows about who you are and what you have to offer. Implementing a linking strategy helps dwindle that percentage down—one comment at a time.

This is done by posting comments on various blogs and forums that ultimately directs others back to your site and/or blog. For example, you’re in IT staffing and are looking to recruit potential SAP developers. Locate and join any user groups and communities focused on SAP. Once a member, post comments and reply to other people’s comments (a.k.a. threads). Continue to do this for a couple of posts, and then start to mention in future posts that your company specializes in IT staffing and is in need of SAP developers. Provide a link to your site and/or job posting. Repeat this process across multiple mediums and sites.

5. Invest in social media
People have been connecting to friends, family and colleagues on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter for some time and businesses have discovered how powerful these social networking and social messaging sites are for reaching their target audience.

Like businesses, consumers are also turning inward during this economic situation. They are making more and more purchasing decisions based upon recommendations from friends and colleagues in their network. This trend is expected to only continue—thus promoting the need to not only have a company presence on these social networking and social messaging sites, but also actively post and comment on them.

As with anything online, these tactics should complement each other. This creates a synergy that enables you to maximize your efforts and build your brand, while generating additional revenue. Another benefit to having an online presence is that it enables you to modify your messaging and/or approach at a moment’s notice—helping you stay current with the latest trends and hot topics.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get online! Start experiencing firsthand the benefits of implementing these five key methods to help you to generate additional revenue.

Elizabeth Smith
Director of Social Media Marketing
ClearEdge Marketing

No doubt, the basis of Web 2.0 has become an essential part of day-to-day business—offering new ways to communicate and collaborate. Whether it’s through social networking sites or online collaboration tools, these applications are essential for driving innovation and efficiency across businesses. Yet, with all seriousness aside, there is a playful side of Web 2.0 that often presents us with pure entertainment.

Take for instance: Flickr, Plaxo, Wiggio, Yammer—ever wonder how names like these originated or what the solution is that they offer? Welcome to the plethora of Web 2.0 sites with strange names that are unrelated to their service—a collection of Web sites dedicated to services and applications that enhance creativity, information sharing and collaboration. Based on some of the names, you would never intuitively know what their purpose is or what innovative solution they are presenting.

They Do What?
Browsing Web 2.0 sites can often feel like you are on a road trip, deciphering letters on license plates into words and phrases like “ANYWR” (anywhere). Sometimes the names make it clear what vegetable of the day the creator ordered for lunch (CALLIFLOWER) or that they needed a jolt of caffeine before work that morning (Cappuccino). But it’s not always clear what the solution is that they offer. As if anyone would immediately know that Wiggio would allow a group to collaborate online or that Plaxo was a professional networking site. 

Clearly, a quirky name is a popular way to get attention among these companies that are trying to revolutionize and differentiate the service they are offering. And for those companies that just have no creativity left there is even a Web 2.0 Name Generator just in case a company or application needs help coming up with a completely unrelated name.

A recent blog posted on CIO Insider went even further citing the following three rules of thumb to qualify it as a ridiculous Web 2.0 site:

1. The site’s mission statement must be impenetrable   
2. The site must solve a problem that has been solved a million times already or didn’t need solving in the first place
3. Its name must love the letter “r” but eschew vowels ( Drivl, Grazr, Hngry), or be a refugee from “Jabberwocky” (CurdBee, Egghub, Humyo, Jiffle)

The Entertainment Factor
Clearly some of this just feels like haphazard entertainment, but as marketers, we can appreciate the creativity being harnessed through these sites. The names are often deliberately created to be different, catchy and short, in an attempt to promote their brand and make it easy to remember. Think about it, before Web 2.0 emerged, names like Wikipedia and Google were barely known. Now, “Wikipedia” has become part of our everyday language, and “Google” is a verb. While their name helps, Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia and Google are successful because they embrace the Web 2.0 credence. They bring together collective knowledge, support interaction and communication, and are constantly evolving based on user feedback. It is more than a “cool” name and an average service that continues to help them come out on top. 

Not every name is going to be effective. As the concepts of Web 2.0 continue to produce improved solutions to organizations and individuals, it will be up to those Web 2.0 businesses to not only have an innovative name, but a strong business model too. A marketing strategy, a solid message and a differentiator within the service they are offering will go a long way in the world where 1000 different companies tout their expertise of online project management. 

At the same time, the world loves to laugh. Who knows, perhaps some of this silliness will harness your innovation and creativity.  

For More Laughs
Check out the Web 2.0 directory, www.Feedmyapp.com, to view some of the newest companies and applications. This site allows people to log new Web 2.0 applications and sites. Over the past year, they averaged 157 new Web 2.0 application listings per month ranging from solutions for pets to solutions for collaboration.

Nikki Leonardi
Marketing Director
ClearEdge Marketing

Web 2.0 – is that a new style guide for Web sites?  A new technical specification?  A new release version for Microsoft?  Doesn’t that have something to do with Facebook?  How is that going to affect my current Web site?  

In a marketing agency, these types of questions come up frequently as organizations look to us to update or launch a new Web site project or online strategy.  While Web 2.0 is not a new term, it has definitely picked up momentum and is weaving itself into the mainstay of the entire business world.  The variety of Web sites, conferences and businesses lending their credence to Web 2.0 has increased immensely over the past few years, creating a buzz among organizations to learn more about this technology and how it works. Yet even with all this information, there remains confusion around what Web 2.0 really is. 

Surprising?  Not really.  This seemingly simple term can be quite complex, especially for those outside of the IT world.   And while some organizations have a much better understanding of what Web 2.0 entails, all too often the true value gets overlooked – the impact it can have on a business’s strategy and operations. 

So What Is It?
While the name might indicate a ‘new Web release’, in reality it’s not new technical specifications at all, just a way in how current technology is used.  According to Wikipedia this term is used to describe the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and how developers and end-users utilize the Web.  Most of us are not foreign to this concept at all and utilize this technology in some fashion every day. Social networking sites (Facebook, My Space), wikis, RSS (real simple syndication), even this blog—all are tools that support the inherent concepts of Web 2.0—enhanced creativity, information sharing and collaboration.

But How Is It Really Affecting Business?

The Good:
Obviously this technology is growing into more than just consumer tools and Internet pastimes.   Businesses have recognized the benefits and relevance of Web 2.0 technologies and are readily investing in this concept. In fact, studies done by Forrester Research found that one in three businesses across North America and Europe is planning to invest in Web 2.0 tools and technologies in 2008.  They also stated that enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies will grow strongly over the next five years, reaching $4.6 billion globally by 2013.

In fact, many organizations have already incorporated some level of Web 2.0 into their strategy, without even knowing this was part of the buzz.  Companies have learned that this technology is an inexpensive and easy way to interact with their users.  By fostering business communities, corporate blogs and Facebook pages, etc., companies can reach their customer base more quickly and enhance their products and services more regularly based on end-user feedback.  Even internally within an organization, Web 2.0 applications can increase information sharing through wikis and internal blogs as well as incremental releases—all greatly reducing time-to-resolution of key issues and problems in an organization.   In a TopCoder survey conducted for ComputerWorld, seven in 10 coders stated that traditional corporate development teams could benefit from Web 2.0 techniques, specifically the incremental feature releases, quick user feedback loops and quality assurance programs that include users. 

The Bad and The Ugly:
It’s apparent though that not all businesses are ready to open their doors and embrace Web 2.0.  While this technology acts as a catalyst for collaboration, it has also opened up a real vulnerability—greater access for hackers, more susceptibility to viruses,  risk of employees inadvertently (or purposefully) sharing proprietary information, negative information posted over user groups—that organizations have not had to focus on so intensely in the past.

There also remain a lot of questions and concerns regarding legalities and liability around public disclosure as well as ownership of intellectual property when utilizing these technologies.  While companies can (and should) incorporate more procedures and controls to protect themselves, there has been very little regulation as to what that looks like.  Just recently the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a statement addressing the need for greater guidance regarding many of these applications for businesses. 

So What’s Next for Businesses?
Web 2.0 is essentially a paradigm shift in the way we not only socialize and communicate, but also in the way business is conducted.  Clearly not all aspects of Web 2.0 are a match for every company and not every company is immediately ready to incorporate any of these processes or applications, but it is certainly gaining popularity across the masses and finding new ways to integrate into every day business.  Organizations do not really have a choice in IF they will utilize this concept, but rather HOW they will utilize it. So, what about your business; how is Web 2.0 affecting your strategy?

Nikki Leonardi
Marketing Director
ClearEdge Marketing