Web Marketing 2.0 Viral, Social and Measuring the Trend by Chad Udell

An Overview Who Am I? Designer at heart, developer by trade. What Do I Know? Web Designer for Rollingstone.com, freelance game developer (Lego, Nick.com, Cartoon Network) Nearly a decade of experience is designing, developing and delivering web experiences What Do I Do? Developer for the Iona Group in Morton, IL www.ionagroup.com Instructor at Bradley in the Multimedia Program Active blogger on design and development related topics at www.visualrinse.com

Web Marketing - A Brief History Traditional Ad Banners Popups, Popunders Interstitials and Microsites CoBranded and Other Strategies Newsletters, Mailing Lists

Web Marketing – Recent Developments Broadband penetration is nearing 50% (US is actually only 14th on the list of nations in penetration) - http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/224/report_display.asp Video has become pervasive (Flash Player Version 6 intro’ed video, we are currently on version 9, version 10 is just around the corner - will bring HD video to Flash) - http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/219/report_display.asp Traditional advertising methods on the web (banners, etc.) have all been nearly exhausted - click overload - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click-through_rate Web 2.0 techniques of content sharing and community building are now being explored and used to create advertising opportunities, expand marketing efforts and increase reach

Web 2.0 – What is it? Web 2.0 is not a revision or upgrade to the web. It is a perceived transition to a system where content and sites are integrated with each other via a number of data exchange formats Successful content is now more about “pull” than push. Communities are vetting the content and products that are appropriate for the group Selling and marketing on the web is changing with it

Web 2.0 Changes to Web Marketing – 1 Viral site/video Irreverant, humorous, edgy content wins the day Limited branding, limited product placement allow for low impact selling and increase pass along Encouraging users to send the message along is huge Enabling users to embed the content, comment on it, builds the snowball effect Key Examples: Subservient Chicken, Trunk Monkey, Monk-e-mail, Hungry Suitcase

Web 2.0 Changes to Web Marketing – 2 Newsletters Lose Their Luster Email as a branding/selling medium is not as effective anymore, open rates are low, click throughs even lower You hated spam, now you are bombarded with Bac’n Content Syndication (RSS) and mobile content delivery via SMS are emerging as a more effective way of sending your message to interested users/customers

Web 2.0 Changes to Web Marketing – 3 Social Media Communities with active and interested people in your products and services are a great way to expand your reach and brand MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, FeedBurner and the like can make your content a winner Rip, Mix, Burn – Promoting mashups, distributing widgets and enabling content sharing from your site or media can expand your reach Consumers are becoming content producers – Blogging, Flickr, etc.

Evolutions in Measuring Basics The Internet is the most measurable media man has ever produced. – http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=67007 In spite of that, the number of measuring sticks make the task dauniting. Server side, client side, commercial or free?, surveying, user tests, heat maps, etc. What to measure, what to focus on? Page views, uniques, YouTube views? Pick your metrics before the project starts, share those metrics with your team and stick with them. Standardization on definitions of terms is helpful: What is a “page view” - http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/attachments/committees/5/WAA-Standards-Analytics-Definitions-Volume-I-20070816.pdf

In Conclusion The marketplace is changing Video is growing at an immense rate Community acceptance makes the difference between a success and a failure - cater to your users and don’t oversell Without planning and team agreement, measuring effectively is impossible. http://www.makemylogobiggercream.com/ Check out a recent community site The Iona Group created for Tyson Foods at cluckhere.com – send a video ecard – an Improv-O-Gram