Web2.0 Lessons (So Far)

Over a year ago, I began my Web2.0 experiment. I decided to find out what all the fuss was about and so I signed up for a free blogger account and wrote my first blog entry. That was in June of 2006.

In the past 18 months, I've experimented with a second blog (Liquid Canuck) , a Squidoo lens, an e-book published on Lulu.com, an instructional video on YouTube (for our 5Rules company) and I occasionally write for our company blog at the 5Rules website.

I use sites like Technorati, Del.icio.us, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit and Truemors.

Here's what I've learned so far.

1. When writing for the web, having a subject focus will help set expectations for your readers. My first blog, is a mixture of personal stuff about my family, living in Germantown and business and technology lessons learned. This mix makes it difficult for readers to know what to expect from day to day and this impedes reader loyalty. So I started a second blog to try to separate business lessons from family, friends and home life - (I'm still not very good at it!)

2. Readership improves when I write something I'm passionate about or hold a strong opinion about. Readers like to be with you or against you.

3. I try to write everyday, but if I'm uninspired, I'd rather not write anything at all. The lack of frequency hurts readership, but crappy articles hurt readership more.

4. We're a nation of watchers. My experiments with YouTube and video demos prove this out (at least in my case). Our instructional demo video gets several views per day on YouTube. Our video demos at 5Rules are viewed about 8x more than the same information in screenshot format on the same website. Average length of visits DRAMATICALLY improved when we added video.

5. YouTube videos work like ice fishing. You bait the hook and position the rod over the hole in the ice and wait for nibbles. They're out there working like bait 7x24x365. Provide an interesting value proposition, valuable information or entertainment and you will be seen.
In my opinion, web based video is the single biggest underutilized marketing and communications opportunity for business today.

6. The rules for success in the web world are no different than for the brick and mortar world. The rewards go to those who provide the best value (information, services, entertainment, networking, products or services). And the web allows the word about great companies to spread fast! (and bad ones too!)

7. The web puts everyone on equal footing. No longer do huge marketing dollars guarantee an advantage. Viral videos on YouTube probably sold more Mentos and Coke than did their respective company's huge ad budgets - even if the result was that their products were used in combustion experiments rather than being consumed!

Need another example? Look no further than how Captain Jim, a Charter boat fishing captain, competes with Cabella's.

8. The Web2.0 world really offers you the opportunity (at virtually no cost) to build a networked fanbase - to connect with customers and colleagues in a way that is far more difficult, expensive and time consuming in the "real" world.

And we're all just getting started.