Web 2.0 Marketing - Fact Or Fiction?
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Web 2.0 marketing, making use of social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, and the new generation of content-rich community sites like HubPages and Squidoo, is an extension of the time-honored tradition known as referral marketing, networking or, lately, relationship marketing.
How the current crop of Web 2.0 gurus are ignoring basic human psychology.
There is a lot of hype about Web 2.0 marketing at the moment.
It's the "next Big Thing", which means we're about 12 months out from "The Death Of Web 2.0 Marketing" and an avalanche of affiliate emails heralding the arrival of its replacement.
If you have an eBook half written on Web 2.0, you had better get your skates on, or you'll be giving it away, or maybe even paying people to download it!
Why Do I Say This?
How can I be so sure?
Because there is a fundamental logical flaw in the psychology of most Web 2.0 marketing approaches being touted in seminars and eBooks at the moment.
Now, not every activity you might do as part of a Web 2.0 marketing campaign is completely without value, that's not what I'm saying.
But there's a whole load of inflated expectations and downright misinformation out there, and this is my attempt to shine a light into the can of worms.
I'm not even selling anything. Nor am I ever going to sell anything even remotely related to this topic. You'll understand why by the time you get to the end of this Hub.
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Why Networking, Referral Marketing and Relationship Marketing Work
There is a fundamental truth about human beings, and it has been known by salesmen since time immemorial.
People like to buy from people they like.
This is not news.
What does appear to be news, though, is where that particular drive comes from.
If you think about it logically, should the worst happen and you are lying in a hospital ER and nobody knows what's wrong with you, you would actually prefer a socially retarded jerk like Gregory House as your doctor, as opposed to, say, your best friend Kevin who did work experience with a vet once.
Competence is a factor.
But here's where it gets interesting.
All our emotional patterns were developed to maximise our survival throughout a long period of time in which we lived a very different lifestyle from the way we live now.
Combine some lingering biological factors in our make-up with the sudden transition to a completely different way of life, and you have the setting for some fairly dysfunctional choices. And the rise of those who can exploit our natural tendencies.
We used to live in small communities, where we knew all the people, and we knew what they were good at. We had also worked side by side with them at times when the whole village needed to pull together, and we had been exchanging help, advice, and chicken soup between our families for as long as anyone could remember.
In that environment, it made sense to go to the people we knew and liked for help, whatever our problem.
In today's complex society, we are all so specialised that the circle of people we know and like isn't going to include providers of all the products and services we will use in our lifetimes.
Suddenly, we are in a situation where we have to select a stranger, and we don't have any direct, personal experience to tell us how competent the various strangers might be.
The basis of business networking organisations is to find a bunch of competent strangers, and give them the opportunity to get to know one another, to use one another's services, and therefore to become comfortable recommending one another to their clients, families, and friends.
The next best thing to personal experience is the personal experience of someone you trust, which is why referral marketing works.
And relationship marketing is a way to build up a sense of familiarity and belief in the competence of the stranger providing a product or service, to the point where they no longer seem like a stranger, even though there isn't a trusted human being making a personal recommendation.
All these marketing approaches focus on that shift from stranger to trusted expert, which is why they are so effective.
The Biology Of Marketing
It's a slightly "cute" subhead, because it's not just the biology of marketing, it's the biology of decision-making.
As you can see in the box to the right, accidental brain damage can illuminate previously unsuspected links between different brain functions.
All Decisions Are Emotional Decisions
Damasio (1994) describes people with injuries that have disconnected the parts of their brains that perform verbal reasoning and numerical calculation from emotional centers such as the amygdala. With their abstract reasoning abilities intact, you might think that the patients become paragons of rationality, like Spock or Data in Star Trek. On the contrary, these patients tend to make poor interpersonal decisions. Damasio conjectures that the deficiencies arise because the brain damage prevents the patients from making emotional evaluations that involve somatic markers, bodily states that indicate the positive or negative emotional value of different possibilities. The problem is that the patients just do not know what they care about.
A patient, nicknamed "Eliot", was a successful and dynamic family man, with a flourishing business and happy relationships. He was found to have a brain tumor, which was successfully removed.
But Eliot's life fell apart. He became unable to maintain his business and personal relationships, unable even to make a simple decision like scheduling an appointment.
Later investigation showed that there had been slight damage to his brain, cutting off his awareness of his bodily emotional states.
It seems that all the conceit the intellect has about rationality and logic is just that - conceit. Even the smallest decision is actually made on the basis of emotional nudges, and without the emotional information, the intellect is lost.
Marketing is the process of influencing a buying decision. Marketing, therefore, is all about emotion.
No amount of logic is going to win an argument against emotion.
Our emotional apparatus evolved to maximise our chances of survival.
But we are so far removed from the environment in which we evolved that we have lost track of some of the reasons for some of our emotional responses.
I am going to join some of those dots back together now, and from that new perspective we can take another look at Web 2.0 marketing.
Who Do We Trust?
A key emotion, particularly for anyone marketing a product, is trust.
Trust links tightly to survival issues, so it is very important to understand how and why we trust people - and again, it's less to do with logic and more to do with biology.
Psychologically, we are wired to trust "the tribe". Our problem is that we no longer live in extended family tribes. We live in much larger agglomerations of people, and our awareness of individuals spans the globe.
But our brains have not caught up with this.
Studies have shown that primates (of which human beings are a species) live in troops of varying size, depending on their species. If a family group grows beyond a certain number, it just naturally splits into two smaller groups. The number varies between species, but is very consistent for primates of the same species, no matter where they are living.
Researchers have found a correlation between the maximum troop size, the number of members at which a troop splits in two, and the size of a part of the brain called the neocortex (as a percentage of total brain size).
It seems that the neocortex is what allows us to build relationships of trust with others, such that we will help them out when they need something.
The size of the human neocortex corresponds to a troop size of around 150. In other words, we are limited in our ability to relate closely with more than around 150 different individuals.
This number, known as Dunbar's number and popularised by David Wong as "The Monkeysphere" is theoretically a limit based on our biology, but we have used our intellects to solve the problems of living closely with more people than can comfortably fit in our monkeysphere.
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The Paradox Of Choice
The problem with rules - formal or informal - is that not everyone fits within them. In a small town, with less than 150 people, it is possible to come to know each other person in the town, and by knowing them directly, as a person, and feeling empathically their goodwill and personal struggles over the years.
In those places, people's quirks are known and accepted.
Paradoxically, it is easier to be accepted as, for example, a man who wears skirts, in a very conservative town of 100 people than it is to be accepted in a liberally-inclined college town of 15000.
Personal relationships eliminate stereotyping (hence the classic line "some of my best friends are ..."), and therefore in the small town, it is safe to let your quirks be known. You won't be labelled as your quirk and then treated like an "unperson", because everyone there has known you from birth - yours or theirs.
In a larger group, one has to choose the 150 who will get to live in one's personal monkeysphere, because not everyone will fit.
We tend to choose the people who are most like us, because they make us feel the most comfortable. Then we are faced with the situation that we are living pressed up against several thousand, or maybe even several million, people who are unlike us, and we don't have room in our monkeysphere to make the personal connections that would enable us to get over our differences and feel at home with them.
So the more homogenous we manage to make our monkeysphere, the scarier the "others" get.
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Instead of maintaining warm emotional relationships with everyone in order to hold our society together, we have substituted rules, policies, and laws, complete with penalties for infractions. The cost of this is that the community becomes impersonal, because for rules to work, they must be applied consistently, which reduces the ability for people to respond to individual differences.
Our physical security, therefore, is less dependent on being seen, and understood, and known as an individual, and is more dependent on learning the rules and following them diligently.
Parents know this, without necessarily being able to verbalise it, which is why they spend so much time teaching their kids to "be good" and "do what you are told".
However, our emotional security is still grounded in the physiological exerience of being seen, and felt, and responded to appropriately. The foundations of emotional security are laid down in infancy, when mothers (ideally) empathise with their infants and reflect back to the infant an expression which matches the infant's inner state.
The pressures of living by rules instead of in emotionally connected communities tend to isolate mothers of young infants in our society, and in their exhausted isolation they are less able to respond to their infants than mothers in traditional tribal societies, who are sharing childcare and other chores with a dozen or more other adults.
This results in more chronically anxious kids in our culture than in traditional extended-family cultures.
The end result is that we have a lot of adults still looking for emotional security, a sense of belonging, and a place where they can be seen and understood - and loved - as an individual, and not just because they are doing what they are told.
Enter Web 2.0
In a world where the people you see on the street don't know you, and don't care about you, in a world where people are uncomfortable with difference, anxiety sends us on a constant quest to find people who will love us just as we are. And failing that, people who are just like us and therefore won't reject us.
The internet has now opened up a global market of individuals with whom we can interact online, and Web 2.0 sites have opened up a wider and deeper set of online interactions we can have.
When a Web 2.0 site starts up, it usually has fewer than 150 active users. People extend tolerance to one another, because they have something in common - the fledgling 2.0 site - and enough room in their monkeysphere to include all the other active members on the site.
The emotional longing is satisfied - people are able to be themselves, and be loved. Transgressions are forgiven, unique strengths are acknowledged and complimented, and everyone's first faltering steps are praised and encouraged.
The members of the site consider themselves to be "the tribe", and they trust one another accordingly. If someone recommends something, they will check it out.
As the site grows in popularity, the number of participants starts to outgrow the monkeysphere. People start relating to one another as stereotypes, because they don't have time or brain space to get to know everyone as a three-dimensional human being.
At this point, people break into sub-tribes. They still follow recommendations from their sub-tribe fellows, but they may be slightly more suspicious of recommendations from "the folks over in the Spirtuality Forum". There will be a few strong personalities whose recommendations are trusted by members of most sub-groups - they are then known as "influencers".
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The Exchange Of Value Within And Outside Of The Monkeysphere
This is the piece of the puzzle which is missed by all the gurus.
With the people who are inside our monkeysphere, the people we know personally and with whom we have have warm emotional relationships, with those people we are engaged in a constant exchange of value.
We give and receive smiles, attention, food, physical contact, help with anything from solving a problem to moving house, care when we are sick, emotional support, interesting and amusing information, company, encouragement, and a place to crash when we can't go home.
In this constant give-and-take, it is perfectly natural to exchange products and services for money as well.
Or, at least it was, back in the times when we lived in villages of up to 150, and most people never went more than 40 miles from where they were born.
What we all ache for, and what business networking and Web 2.0 communities promise, but rarely deliver, is the chance to live in a community where we are valued for more than just our cash, or the product we make. Where we are exchanging value on a number of levels, and money is the smallest part of that exchange.
We want to be loved by our customers, our suppliers, and our fellow-workers.
This is why person-to-person contact is still the single most effective way to convert a prospect to a client. Only face-to-face can the experience of being seen, being heard, and being valued take place at its most concentrated. This experience is so heady, so powerful, that many people have bought things they really didn't need, and their only explanation after the fact is "I liked the guy ..."
What happens, though, when the deal is done, and the salesperson moves on?
Abandonment. Betrayal. Disappointment. Anger. Humiliation, sometimes.
We are so used to this experience that the emotions rarely make it to conscious awareness. But this feeling of being manipulated, being "played" or "used" is universally disliked.
I do NOT endorse this young man's product or service. This video is here to demonstrate what happens when marketing meets Web 2.0. Notice how it feels when you hear the introduction - is it plausible? At what point during the presentation does he lose your trust? Why does that happen? And how do you feel when it happens?
What Happens When Marketing Meets Web 2.0?
So, here we are - a bunch of formerly anxious, slightly isolated individuals, revelling in this new Web 2.0 experience where everyone is either just like us, or accepts us for who we are.
Enter, stage left, Marvin The Marketer.
Is Marvin just like us?
Well, he doesn't join in the conversation, he isn't displaying any vulnerability or disclosing any personal confidences, and he's not really taking an interest in what we do around here.
So, no, he's not like us.
Well that's OK, as long as he accepts us just the way we are.
But he's not engaging.
He can't possibly know who we are, because he's not asking anything. He's broadcasting at us. Like a television.
Sometimes, if he's Marvin Mark II, he is capable of having a limited exchange in a forum thread or in comments, and the exchange could plausibly be with a human being.
But there is something missing.
Marvin doesn't have any of himself invested in this community. He's like a puppet, or a robot. We start to feel like we're in a version of the Turing test. We start to feel manipulated, betrayed, and used.
The better Marvin Mark II does initially, the longer we treat him as a genuine member of our clan before we realise we are being played, the greater the sense of anger and betrayal.
But Surely It Is Possible To Do It Properly?
No.
Not the way the gurus say.
Think about it.
Marvin's monkeysphere is only 150 people. How likely is it that Marvin can keep himself in spam sandwiches for the rest of his life on just 150 sales? Of anything?
For Marvin's business to be a success, Marvin has to sell outside his monkeysphere. And Web 2.0 sites, while they have many other uses, can't make Marvin's monkeysphere any bigger, nor can they make outsiders to Marvin's monkeysphere feel like they are insiders.
The reason why Web 2.0 isn't the Holy Grail is exactly the same reason that the Golden Rolodex wasn't the Holy Grail fifty years ago. You simply can't leverage personal relationships beyond a certain scale.
Now, there is another phenomenon which you can leverage far more widely - the latest buzzword for that is "maven", being a maven, mavenship - and Web 2.0 platforms can help push that effect along.
But that effect is not the same as the effect people are being urged to tap into by cynically "getting in there, posting a few comments, bookmarking a few things, looking like a genuine user ..."
As Rocky says, "That trick never works ..."
If you are not genuinely part of the community, you just won't get the trust due to a real member of "the tribe".
Here is an example of more reasonable use of Web 2.0. Again, I haven't used this company and I am not endorsing them.
Notice particularly the advice about how to use MySpace, and think about what you have just read on this Hub.
Does it give you a new perspective on how you might apply the information given in this video about MySpace?
Is It All A Waste Of Time, Then?
No, not at all - there are many valid and useful purposes for being involved with Web 2.0 platforms.
A major reason is search engine optimisation (SEO). Web 2.0 sites are usually viewed as "authority" sites by search engines, which means that links from Web 2.0 sites generate "link love" - links back to your site from places with a lot of link clout. And, unlike links from some other forms of link generation, Web 2.0 links are usually free links.
A Web 2.0 platform might send traffic to your site, or cause your message to spread virally, if it catches the imagination of someone influential.
A Web 2.0 platform may allow you to rank high on the search engines for competitive keywords, and place information on that valuable internet real estate which demonstrates your expertise in an area.
In essence, a Web 2.0 platform can do all the things an article directory used to do - but better. It can generate links to your sites, and spread them around the net virally. It can send you traffic via links to your site. It can rank higher in the organic search results than your money site, putting your brand out in front of more people. And it can give you a platform for publishing material which establishes your credibility as an expert.
What it CAN'T do is spread the power of personal relationships beyond your monkeysphere. It can't get you the love and loyalty of thousands of people. It can't get strangers to support you the way the people in your monkeysphere do.
And it can't replace one-to-one communication. Whatever your business, the key to its success will always be the person in the room with you, or on the phone, IM video call, or skype session.
Choose those people wisely, and the world is your oyster, regardless of what the squid do.
(Sorry about that - just testing to see how many of you are still paying attention by the last line!)
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Comments
Wow.
That's really insightful and I am honestly enamored with your ability to put things into a readble fashion. Yep, I am a big fan.
I have some critique and want to ask you if it is appropriate for me to "piggyback" onto your work through a new hub or should I start addressing them in the comments section here?
Thanks!
Karl Hartley
ps: You need to fix your wikipedia link to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
Hey, Karl. It was a conversation with you that prompted me to begin writing on this topic. Interesting to find you here.
Thanks for the high praise, ohohdon!
By all means social bookmark it everywhere ... it's near to my heart, too.
Karl, whatever you want to do is fine by me. I will always respond to comments, and I'm a fan of yours so I'll see any new Hub you write.
Thanks for the heads-up on the link - I think the apostrophe causes problems. I have re-entered the link location, but if it still doesn't work I will have to find another reference.
Jenny
Interesting hub. You are certainly right about the SEO benefits. The problem is most "marketers" approach this with entirely the wrong mindset, and most social communties see them coming a mile off. There is a clash of cultures and the marketer is usually left running off with his tail between his legs.
But I disagree with the thrust of what you are saying. This is no fad and there will be no "death of social marketing" ebooks. It will grow, and continue to grow. Yes, marketers will try to market, and invariably fail, but the "mavens" will "get the love and loyalty of thousands of people". The smart ones are doing that already, and building multi-million dollar businesses. It's no myth.
I'm just a rookie and still trying to learn as much as I can. Made plenty of mistakes too. But I wonder if you're read Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine
http://schefren.infusionsoft.com/go/age/spronger/
Don't expect you to agree with everything he's saying but would be interested to read your comments. Anyway, a thought-provoking hub. Well done!
Interesting perspective and very well written. Although I understand and respect your point I disagree that Web 2.0 is a flash fad. While you articulately point out the dynamic changes in our culture and our communities; I disagree on that very point.
We do not live in a society where most people know any of their service providers on a first name basis. In fact I would venture to say that most people living in metropolitan areas have no idea what their postman's name is. And I agree with your points about the emotional need to be a part of a tribe. But the unfortunate fact is that because you can live next door to someone for a number of years and never get to know them; a need for that connection is driving the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
While you point is well taken, as with all things there are abuses and misuse, the concept of developing a level of trust through common interests allows people to be more willing to communicate. Web 2.0 is not the Holy Grail it does give people a voice and more importantly a choice of who and how they associate with one another.
The social networks monitor the behaviors of their members and while they can't be expected to control everything, it is understood and expected that you behave in a certain manner as a contributing and respectable member of the community.
I think it opens the door for people to build a community since as you clearly presented the emotional attachment is a the core of all human beings.
Great Hub, full of information supporting your opinion. Thank you
Very thoughtful article (I envy the writing skills) and much on point with a lot of what can be seen and experienced.
A good sense of Web 2.0 marketing was expressed in a promotional/educational interview I heard a while back. In the interview, the participants were deriding one of their customers for spending a great deal of time developing their product. There point was the time should have been spent on the marketing letter and then traffic development and then on . . . . The last place to focus your time for an online product was on the product. They said, in fact, that the product does not even need to be very good as it could be improved after the sale and as an additional revenue source.
In my business life, I have always thought the way to maintain clients, customers and friends (these sometimes overlap) was to provide value and frequently provide more value than cost. So the above model for Web 2.0 marketing in my mind fits your description. But that does not mean that Web 2.0 marketing, sales and customer support is short lived. As there are many of us who strive to provide value to our customer and to frequently provide a lot more value than the perceived or real cost.
In addition, if you look at changing business models with global participation in product development, production, distribution and support, it is obvious that better models for collaboration and communication are needed and that Web 2.0 models fit that need. Not to say the tools and techniques are anywhere close enough to support those needs effectively today. But progress continues to move rapidly supported by Moore's and Metcalf's Laws.
yogiwan
What thoughtful responses! Thanks for the time you have put into them, and the intelligent comment.
I have read Rich's Attention Doctrine - and everything else he has put out in the past couple of years. He's very good at pointing out structural problems and where business principles are being ignored - at our peril.
I'm not saying that Web 2.0 will die - I think you're all right, it's here to stay, and my prediction is that it's going to get more niched. It has lots of valid and effective uses and meets genuine human needs.
I'm just saying that the current wave of inflated claims about its power, and the facile instructions being given out in $37 e-Books on the subject, are misplaced.
Personal relationships are very powerful, this is true. But the very things whcih make them powerful also make them impossible to scale.
The mechanisms by which you can build a large, sustainable business where you have brain space and brand value with many people are different from the mechanisms which have me, for example, leave comments in new Hubs by my favorite Hubbers.
And the points you make, yogiwan, about overdelivering on quality and service are absolutely key to building that reputation. I totally agree.
Web 2.0 platforms, with the ability to comment on and review suppliers and their products, make "slash and burn" online commerce less and less viable.
There is a lot to be gained by having a presence in the Web 2.0 space, absolutely.
Thank you for checking out something Sphunn by a newbie, too - for all you knew, I could have been one of those marketers! I appreciate the time you have put in to reading the Hub and commenting so thoughtfully.
Jenny
Jenny,
Fantastic Work, your an asset to the hubpages community. Would you be
interested in writing content for a new Web 2.0 MLM ;)
Really...Great Job!! Thanks for your insight
Thanks for the compliment!
As for writing content - I am a professional writer, but my fees are probably waaaaaay above what anyone would ever want to pay for content - I understand good writers are doing that for about 3c a word.
I get paid a lot more than that ...
Jenny
Bravo!
Am I crazy as I quietly share all that I have had to learn (the hard way) throughout my social media presences-which, I might add were created with love by me and not a super-dooper-friend scammer-spamalicious-submitter software program?
No, I'm not crazy, just different. I'm not willing to risk my reputation online for all eternity because I felt as if I would die unless I took advantage of every single opportunity to capitalize on well meaning (yet ignorant, thus far) folks searching the web for a legitimate way to work hard toward a dream of financial freedom.
I wipe away a few stray tears from time to time as I see new "web 2.0 marketing gurus" making a mockery of a good thing. Telling inocent noobies they have a product that will put their web 2.0 marketing campaigns on "autopilot." Who didn't know there would be greedy paws after such a powerful concept?
Yet most of these so-called social media marketing experts take one or 2 examples of social media marketing locations and tell people to use them to either pull one over on the search engines or get in people's faces when they're just hanging out trying to enjoy sharing commen interests with peole all over the world.
It's so utterly absurd! Just a bunch of nonsensical jibberish that goes against the entire concept of the big picture of web 2.0 "marketing." It's not about hot products and ground floor opportunities. No one cares! It's about "here you go, if you need help to...it's all yours with no strings attached." The fact that a link to your "home base" online is secondary and really just a kind of "by the way, here's where i am" deal.
Go ahead and spam your way to 300 gazillion one-way backlinks via shameless self-promotion of useless content. A big pile of traffic that immediately runs away to search for what they really wanted is nothing to brag about. Meanwhile, some of us will just hang back and help the people who narrowly escape brainwashing by slick salescopy.
What happens then? As time goes on, people sit up and take notice. "Hey, who is this person who tells me how to...without a credit card? I think I should ask him/ her what their business is all about."
Thanks Inspirepub. It's people like you who are like a great big beacon shining selflessly for poor confused new marketers struggling to make sense of the giant tangle of misinformation.
Sheree
Thanks for the encouragement, Sheree!
I'm fairly new to Web 2.0, but I've been in offline marketing for many years, and I have watched this dynamic re-occur in many settings.
When salesmen are told, "some of your best prospects are your acquaintances, neighbours, people at church, and so on ..." some of them interpret that to mean "attend a service at a local church, and hand out a lot of business cards ..."
Those ones don't seem to get the results, somehow .... funny, that ....
Jenny
Fantasic article...but I still don't quite understand the concept of Web 2.0.....
Well, it's a term with varying definitions, LOL!
In one sense, any form of website which allows for interaction is Web 2.0 - blogs, forums, and so on would all be included.
More recently, it has been narrowed to refer to sites like HubPages, where the regulars get to know one another and form a community. They are not just interacting about a particular topic, they are interacting as full human beings. We get excited over someone's new baby, and we know one another's personalities, likes and dislikes.
The Web 2.0 platforms which foster these kinds of relationships are ones which allow people to put things forward (like a Hub, on this site, or a bookmarked page on a site like Digg), vote on each other's offerings, and discuss them, but also to discuss a whole range of other issues.
Jenny
oK, THANKS, i GET iT
Jenny, excellent hub! Not only have you hit the nail right on the head regarding web 2.0, you've demonstrated exceptional observation skills on the way that we humans behave. Please keep posting excellent hubs like this!
Greg
Very nice hub Jenny.
I think the problem comes down to misunderstanding by marketers. They don't realise that marketing is dead and "Web 2.0" or whatever the next tool for it really illustrates...that it's time to strengthen relationships. The Internet gives us that power of more relationships by increasing our reach beyond our geographical boundaries, but that doesn't mean they'll be strong relationships.
In our marketing saturated world we need a new approach and that's where relationships come in. How do we build relationships? By offering people value.
If business owners spent more time listening to what the real 'gurus' were saying, they'd realise this is the most important message. But too many of them see dollar signs and run off to post a comment here, and an article there...as you say.
The people that truly 'get' Web 2.0 post extremely valuable content here on hubpages, then they have even more valuable content on their website. Then when a person makes contact they offer even more value. Because it's really not about the sale, it's about helping others...isn't that why we got into business in the first place?
Web 2.0 and becoming a maven were never meant to be quick fix solutions, even though the masses want it that way, and they're sometimes sold that way. It's a long term approach to building a solid business.
I look forward to exploring your other hubs,
Craig
I couldn't agree more, Craig!
If you're not in business to make this world a better place - your days are numbered.
Jenny
Kudos Jenny-- I have to admit that while I've read some of your forum posts, this is the first hub of yours that I've read--but certainly will not be the last--nosireeeee. It is so meaty, well researched, well laid out and full of information that I am just blown away.
I didn't even know what web2.0 was( although I've seen and heard the term) but now I am up to speed and I get it. I guess by joining hubpages I became part of it too LOL-- funny thing is I have nothing to market and am here just for the sheer joy of being here, which is considerable, I might add. Thank you so much. I'm off to read more of your hubs.
My compliments on a really great hub. It is nice to read a "contrarian" analsyis of the Web 2.0 fad.
Thank you for this thorough analysis. It makes it clear we can't put all our eggs in one basket.
Thanks for the kind words, Robie - that's why I write these sort of Hubs!
You are indeed part of the "Web 2.0" phenomenon ... enjoy.
Inspirehub,
This is truly from the heart. I know what you are talking about. The funny thing about the link juice that web 2.0 sites can offer is that it is only available if you are a part of the community, at least at hubpages. I've noticed high PR profiles of hubbers and they are not the fly-by-nighters.
Squidoo used to do good for organic results in Google, but then they got slapped a few months ago. Web 2.0 is not a fad, but it isn't what the gurus are touting it to be. You are right.
And... your writing skills are awesome. I will learn from you.
Jonathan
Thanks, Jonathan.
Page rank isn't everything, but you are right. If you're not an active member of a community, you don't get the benefits of being an active member of the community.
Go figure :~
Thanks for the praise! Your Hub Score is looking pretty good - you must be doing something right ;)
Jenny
Wow thanks - awesome hub! I had to take a marketing course a few years ago as part of a diploma. This was before Web anything never mind 2.0 but the rubbish they taught as "laws" meant I recognised the same trash when I hit it on the Web. The classic was the class exercise which was a real-life case study of a group of nuns who ran a rest-home. They were loosing money and most of them were too old to work full-time caring. The idea was to come up with a marketing plan - I came up with the comment that they didn't need a marketing plan they needed to look at whether they had the resources financial or human to run a care home in the first place. There were 2 lecturers in the room 1 whose PhD was in science the other in Marketing - the marketing Lady was furious, the scientish heard what I was saying and didnt say anything but smiled and nodded, and probably stopped me being failed the course! I think born-again marketers live on some other planet - along with all the other religous fanatics!
You're so right, Lissie - the number of times I, as a marketing expert, have been expected to wave a magic wand and fix a business that has no market, or a poor quality product, or provided shocking customer service ... that's not what marketing is for.
And don't get me started on the effect of pouring a whole lot more leads into an under-trained or wrongly-incentivised sales force!
Jenny
Inspirepub,
I thougt you might appreciate this hub I did yesterday. It's on keyword research. I'm assuming you would like it based on your knowledge of Web 2.0.
I would be interested to know what you think about it.
That link is broken, vrecc.
A shame, because your Hub offers a good insight into how keywords work.
Anyone wanting to find your Hub will need to click on your photo and select "SEO" from your tag cloud on your profile page!
Jenny
Wow. This is about so much more than Web 2.0.
On the Web 2.0 front, to be honest, I rather dislike social networking, mostly because it reeks of cheesy pretend goodwill, and I hate that. I hate how people pretend to be friends for no real reason, and I hate it when people run around joining everyone's fan club and then expecting to be joined back. If I join your fan club, it's because I like your work, or because I genuinely found something about your work or your persona that resonated.
That's the way I'd want to be treated, but it isn't the way it works 99% of the time, which is fine, but it means I don't really feel inclined to interact with the group other than to contribute opinions where I have them, and material that is of interest or has entertainment value.
I've always had a problem with groups in that quite often quality will be left behind for popularity. Temporarily at least. At the end of the day, the group is usually more transient than the quality of the individual and their work, and I believe that the cream generally does eventually rise to the top anyway.
On the non 2.0 front, I really learned something about human interaction here, the part where you write:
"The end result is that we have a lot of adults still looking for emotional security, a sense of belonging, and a place where they can be seen and understood - and loved - as an individual, and not just because they are doing what they are told."
That is seriously powerful, and when I compare it to experience, true as well.
This is truly a brilliant hub, it combines sharp humanistic insight, and, if I may say so, seems a little more like a philosophy/psychology lesson clothed in a web topic disguise - which I love.
So, uh, yeah, in case I'd been unclear, I like this hub a lot.
Thanks so much, Hope, I'm really glad you appreciated the Hub.
I like putting ideas in a broader context when I teach, probably because that's my preferred way to learn, and I like to know WHY things are a certain way. I guess that carries over into my writing.
It's nice to know that other people find it valuable, too.
Jenny
I met web 2.0 say a year ago and decided to not become apart of them. I get bombarbed at least 10 emails a week, read and ignore.
I sorry I do not agree with your monkeysphere. I will acknowledge your skills and knowledge far outweigh any of my skills and knowledge. In fact your hub is one of thew most helpfull and influential hubs I have read. Congratulations.
I do agree 100% that people buy from those they like and the references offered.
I will be reading more of your hubs in future.
Thank you for a most convincing hub on most aspects.
Jenny,
Bravo and Ditto! I just left a comment on your Hub How To Use An RSS Feed and then found this Hub after seeing your comment on Greg's Hub on Increase Website Traffic Using Social Bookmark Clubs.
I belong to a local business networking group and have made great friends there and get many referrals through them. We meet for lunch each Wednesday and I often meet individually with other members to further foster my business relationships. The trust factor is present whether it is doing business with a friend or a person referred to you by your friend.
When talking to others about doing business on the Web I use the example of a local network group and explain that conducting business on the Web is really no different. It' all about building genuine relationships with others and helping each other succeed.
Richard
Absolutely, Richard!
With the emphasis on the "genuine"!
If you can automate a "relationship", it's not really a relationship.
Jenny
Hey Jenny,
Excelent hub, covers some very deep topics and I think I have a couple of points worth adding, which is one of the pleaaures we all find in Web2.0 sites and that is that we have an audience where we can share our thoughts about things that mean something to us....that and I believe that the popularity is due to the fact that we all come online to join up in areas of interest to get away from the very marketers and advertisers that have pounded us all day out in the real world and TV is just not a conducive activity to engage oneself in anymore.
The fact that these captains of industry want to get to us here too is not surprising and no doubt they will come up with clever ways perhaps even sneaky ones to try to approach us with their irrisistable offers.
The scariest or the best part of it all is that finally the light might be turning on for some of these marketers whereby instead of just pitching their latest greatest product or service to us some body probably from Accounts said Why Don't You Just Ask Them What They Want?
What a concept!!! Rather than try to pigeon hole us into gender, race, income bracket, job title and then blast it at us nine ways from sunday....they will actually have to ask us what they want and then go and develop that product for the market...it might even be fun and we might get a lot less buyers remorse as long as WE do know what we want!
If their is an upside to being active in the web2.0 community in the long term it has to be that the less time we expose ourselves to traditional media like TV and Magazines looking for what interest us we can pretty much go to a safe place in our online communities and start the search with a headstart, be it by recommendation or accidental discovery.
The downside is if this is where we are spending our time then this is where they will want to get to us, fortunately the braindead Billy's trying to push their affiliate products on us are seen very early by the community at large and to an extent the sites themselves have done what they can to protect that type of individual from flourishing on web2.0 sites.
Reality also says from looking at the rest of the space next to your excellent writing in this hub is it is full of advertising and if some people don't click on those links then these sites may just disappear all together.
Love it or Hate it advertising makes the world go round.
Who would of thought that a service like Googles Adwords would have survived, really, I have all of this free information in front of me on the left and I know that the folks on the right side of the page paid to be there because they make money by selling what is on the other side of that link. So click on an ad that you know is an ad and that you know is going to try and sell you something or click on the links for free which may or may not be trying to sell you something.
Didn't sound much like a business model that would get acceptance from the general marketplace do we really want more ads in front of us, but the rest as they say is a multi billion dollar history.
So perhaps it is not the marketing or the ads on Web2.0 sites it is whether or not they are relevant to us and that is what marketers will have to discover in the world of web2.0 and of course being the marketing and advertising industry they will find a way.
Just as most of what we receive for free is advertising supported (radio, free to air TV) Web2.0 will go the same way and it will be interesting to see how this all plays out, some of the movers are using both upfront and undisclosed ways of giving us what we want so in adressing the title of your hub Web2.0 marketing fact or fiction I say ITS FACT!
I am not sure what gurus you are referring to when you say web2.0 is not the be all and end all of marketing, it isn't yet but the underlying structure these sites are built on is all about giving advertisers what they want, better targetted prospects and there are some big companies out there beginning to understand this.
Not that I am trying to defend any gurus to me they are like politicians they will say just about anything to get the sale, being an Aussie who lives abroad I find it amazing the difference between us and Americans when it comes to their politicians.
Every Aussie knows that politicains are liars, always have been probably always will be...its like a pre-requisite you will be required to make statements that you know or should have known to be untrue and then your PR (spin team) will come in and say You Mispoke, but most Americans I have met getting into the hundreds of them as I lived in Oregon seem to think that their politicians always tell the truth and are not only shocked to consider that maybe they did tell a lie they are psycologically conditioned to forgive any of them that are caught out and on it goes as if nothing has happened.
What the gurus are doing again is hyping up the potential without really giving the foundation or even the techniques that could be used in a positive way to reach your desired audience, they have reduced the interent marketing side of the web into a suckers game, that steals the hopes dreams and finances of so many and what is worse, they feel they have a right to do it because it happened to them when they got started...never got the logic of that one....I see claims being made online like Get 50,000 subscribers to your list tomorrow, blatant screaming headlines like that if done off-line would have to be considered illegal and I can say from where I sit this is the way that many of these so called gurus are likely to end up doing jail terms as the real players come to internet and bring the teams of lawyers with them.
When the big advertisers come to town it is going to get ugly for the little guys and as much as these gurus think they are the Big Dogs right now the reality is they are big fish in little ponds.
It might also have a dramatic impact for individual marketers too the game is about to get extremely expensive to play in and IMHO if you have a niche that you are highly effective in, you might consider how you could team up with a big offline company and get paid as a consultant for teaching them about marketing to their niche or better still create a fanatical base of followers and position yourself as an industry review expert and take the ad dollars from your blog....because when push comes to shove and the big dollars hit online advertising in the not too distant future, you will be facing the identical challenges that mom and pop stores have when Walmart comes to town.
I wanted to close by saying that not many of us get to see the layers peeled off the internet and how it really works at the protocol level (that is how everything interacts with everything else automatically) and what all those companies that give away free products and services are doing to recover their expenses, their is a dirty underground that first came to light for me a couple of years back about how one segment of the internet worked with CPA networks.
Affiliates out there spending loads of money on advertising on adwords to drive traffic to other peoples sites for free, then getting a miniscule commission for a transaction, their are bottom feeders, who pay for the adwords, middle men who run the campaigns paying you peanuts for doing it so they dont have to and then there are the whales who are above them and who have multiple middle men out there encouraging us that our fortunes are almost certain if we just start promoting this next campaign.
We spend all the money getting them the leads and they sit back and share the big money laughing at all the would be affilates or as they like to call them silliates.
In order to keep this short I will finish it here by saying that there is a lot more that goes on in the internet marketing world than most people realise, almost every action that is taken at the suggestion of another is being directed behind the scenes by a small group of powerful database owners would be the poli
Sorry for the spelling errors in the previous post, that's what happens on a rant I guess, I knew the previous post of mine was getting too long, but to finish off politely describing these internet purveyors as database owners and the cute name they have chosen for themselves Behavioural Targetting Networks gets under my skin.
If you have ever wondered how Microsoft could pay so much money for Hotmail when it is a free service, just think back to how much info you had to give them when you signed up, ditto Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, you dont pay $1.6 billion for a compnay like YouTube without a revenue model because its a cool idea, its because their are big agencies in the wings waiting to get their hands onthe data so they can pitch you full stop.
If you have never heard of a BT Network you will be even more surprised to know that you are laomst certainly listed on one, maybe not by name but with BT advertisers getting 10-30% increases in their click through rates and with personlization marketing adding to that again it might not be long before they go the full monty....how do you get on them? Well have you ever downloaded a free screensaver? Do actually read those legalese terms of service or user agreements on websites you visit, the fact is lots of web2.0 sites give away great widgets, apllications and seemingly innocent enhancements for free only to capture and use your info either today or in the future and its only just begun
I would like to give you some specific examples of these to increase your awareness so if you would like more info just leave a comment here and if I get enough I will do a hub on Behavioural Targetting Networks, BlueTooth Advertising, Mobile Marketing and give you an insight into what lies ahead.
So Jenny, it is nice to see another Aussie voicing their opinion in an elegant way. I hope to read more of your writing in the future.
Respectfully,
Mike McBride
Thanks Mike, for the praise, and for all the thought you have put in to your comments.
Personally, I refuse to give my mobile (cell) number to anyone, and if that is a compulsory field on the form, then someone just lost a sale. My phone is my last bastion of privacy, and NOBODY spams my phone.
I think you should do a Hub, and especially tell people what they can do (or avoid doing) to prevent their personal information being harvested.
Jenny
You put the things into right perspective and in order especially about how people become emotionally disconnected and thus stop reacting to other people (e.g. mothers to their own infants ) .
It makes me realise about some of the problems in my personal life as well (as I had married a girl outside my community). The question is how to solve the emotional disconnection .
Srinivas
It's hard, Srinivas.
I have another Hub about recovery from this condition:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Finding-Ones-Self---Recove
Maybe this might help ... best wishes for the journey.
Warm regards,
Jenny
Jenny
What can I say that hasn't already been said? This must be about the best, most thoughtful article I have ever read on internet marketing. The insights into Web 2.0 from a psychological perspective are tremendous. Your writing style is so readable, straightforward but full of insights and logically presented.
The whole monkeysphere thing is really helpful. It explains why HubPages works so well. I'm probably aware of around 100 - 150 Hubbers through the forums and their hubs that I feel I 'know'. There are also 1000s of spammers who pass through briefly and thankfully 'disappear'. So many human organisations (for example churches) stop growing at between 100 and 200 members.
One final thought - this hub illustrates that HubScore isn't everything. This must be one of the best Hubs on HubPages (ever) yet it currently scores only 78. If we are honest, many of the highest rated Hubs don't have particularly high quality content. My only Hub to score 100 was rubbish!
Jenny, you don't need to tell us you are a professional writer - it is self evident from your output. As a writer, you rock!
Oh Rik, what high praise! Thank you!
The quality of the content is only one aspect of the Hub's score, of course.
My guess is that this Hub won't really get a high score unless it gets lots of external traffic, which won't happen any time soon.
Even if all 200-400 Hubbers who are active in the forums Stumbled it or Dugg it at once, that still wouldn't bring it to the front page of either site. And I'm not out in webmaster forums posting links to it in Web 2.0 threads.
Maybe over time it will develop those sorts of backlinks organically, you never know.
But it's nice to know that the small number of people who do come to visit really enjoy their time here. :)
Great Job! Very thought provoking.
Glad you enjoyed it, Steve!
Yes! Are you up to the challenge? You're a true writer and like most academics I thank you for the glossy words and inspired publishing, now, can you get off your high horse and show us the money!
Not quite sure I follow you, highwaystar. I make some money online - not enough to support me in the manner in which I would like to become accustomed, to be sure, around USD$1000 per month, give or take - so I assure you my comments are not from an academic spectator.
But as for showing you the money - the information I used is all free online - go find it for yourself! My coaching is worth USD$125 an hour ... (and before anyone makes any insinuations, I don't count coaching revenue in the $1000 a month - that's passive income only.)
Cool post, even a year and half later it is still relevant. When this post was created, Twitter was even a chirp on the global stage - now it is screeching.
However that aside, I actually think Twitter validates your point in some ways. Web 2.0 marketing is fundamentally about tools like Twitter.
They are just tools, nothing more. Tools to build a relationship as you say.
Yes they will enjoy Andy Warhol moments of global glory.But ultimately these tools we fad and new ones replace them - but the key need for their existence wont change - the need to build a relationship with your market.
So if you have a chance, it probably would be worth re-visiting this hub, with a view 18 months later.
Thanks CamG!
I did write about fundamental truths of human psychology, so hopefully it will continue to be relveant for years to come. Thousands of Twitter followers mean nothing if you don't have a personal relationship with them - you can Tweet until you are blue in the face, and none of them will buy your product ...
ohohdon says:
2 years ago
Wow! Inspirepub, this hub is one of the most attractive, informative, useful hubs that I've seen.
The topic is near and dear to my heart. In fact, a few days ago, I started a hub on a the same topic. I'm not sure where I'll go with that one, now. You said it all so clearly. I think I'll just point my visitors here for this information. Thanks for doing the work for me.
You rock! This hub deserves a Digg, a Stumble, Del.icio.us, a plug, and a link from my blog.