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MARKETING 2.0: A REVOLUTION IN MARKETING

"Marketing 2.0" is the label being given to the new ways marketing is being practiced with Web 2.0 concepts and tools. While these new ways are particularly evident in marketing communications (how sellers and buyers talk to one another), they are affecting the entire practice of marketing.

Several factors have contributed to the growing excitement amongst marketers about Marketing 2.0, including: (a) the growing availability of broadband Internet connections, (b) the much easier searchability of the Internet, (c) the increased experience and self-confidence of Internet users, (d) the increased skepticism of all corporate communications (from press releases to advertising), and (e) the increased physical separation of people (resulting in desires for 'virtual socialization'). Marketing 2.0 is all about tapping into the remarkable growth in 'social networking'.

In many ways, Marketing 2.0 is an attempt to leverage an old marketing idea : potential customers frequently trust and value the opinions of one another more than they do the commercial messages of corporations trying to sell them something; that is, word-of-mouth (WOM). WOM has never been controllable by marketers, but today WOM is active in ways unimaginable to marketers in the past. Marketers have two basic stances they can take WOM online: (a) they can listen and observe and learn (of course, they must respect privacy rights and the rules of online communities as they do this), and (b) they can actively enter into the conversation attempting to steer it or encourage greater dissemination of it (some refer to such interventions around WOM as "buzz marketing" or "viral marketing").

The techniques for social networking are changing continuously, but here is a list of the majors today:

  1. Blog (personal; easily updates websites plus blogging aggregators, e,g., Twitter)
  2. Online communities (e.g., Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn)
  3. Podcasting and videocasting (e.g., YouTube)
  4. Virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life)
  5. Widgets and wikis (e.g., Wikipedia)
  6. Online games and contests)
  7. RSS feeds (means "really simple syndication" to track other sites)
Sophisticated marketers are experimenting with and learning about Marketing 2.0 new methods of marketing research to get more authentic views of customers; new ways to design and promulgate marketing communication campaigns; and new ways to complement distribution systems. As a consequence, new markets are being opened and new measures of marketing performance are being created. However, Marketing 2.0 does NOT mean that all of the rest of this note will soon be obsolete. On the contrary, successful use Marketing 2.0 techniques requires effective application of the fundamental principles of marketing.

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