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Balancing Your Focus in the Web 2.0 World
By Tiffany | April 10, 2007
When I first heard about web 2.0 and peer to peer marketing, I was confident that my experience as a writer would serve me well in being able to reach out to my target audience.
I could already convey my thoughts well and generate an endless mound of ideas. My first foray into web 2.0 marketing was in using Squidoo to build exposure for my ghostwriting business, Write Consultants, Inc.
For years I have worked behind the scenes, creating products for major marketing gurus like John Reese, Rich Schefren, Janet Wilson of Empowerism, Jimmy Brown, and more.
I forged friendships with these people and as I worked on their product creation, I asked questions and got a good grasp of what the marketing industry was all about. It was that knowledge that I turned into a free 5-part course on Squidoo, linking one lens to another to give me more links and more opportunities to promote both my services and affiliate products (since I didn’t have my own at that time).
My course, The Art of Becoming an Information Entrepreneur, resulted in my lens having one of the biggest guestbooks on Squidoo. I had dozens of new clients find me through the site and it earned me thousands of dollars in revenue the first year.
My focus was all about proving to the prospects that I could create valuable content, because when they saw my course, they would see my talent and decide whether or not my style fit their needs.
Then I hit a stumbling block. After my Squidoo eBook launched (Social Networking on Squidoo), I began hosting monthly challenges for people wanting to test their LensMaster skills out against one another and see who could claim the highest LensRank position on the site.
During this time, I became more tech-savvy about the mechanical workings of Squidoo, and my focus was now consumed with HTML code, iFrames, and tricks to make my lens more aesthetically pleasing for an added “Wow factor.”
My new lenses started to rank lower even though I was following proper protocol in amping up the technical side of things. I still added content, but instead of focusing on creating a highly valuable lens, I was playing to search engine spiders and robotic elements my actual visitors weren’t interested in.
With web 2.0, you have to achieve balance between applying the mechanics that will boost your findability on the ‘net with a healthy dose of peer-influenced content. Your target audience isn’t interested in the fact that you have a snazzy new button to bookmark your site on Technorati. They’re more interested in whether or not you’ve given them something worthy of reading and sharing with others.
My goal now (regardless of what web 2.0 site I’m using), is to first create for my audience and then go back and harness the technical aspects of the site to my advantage. Yes, it takes longer to break it up into two parts, but the results are proving that a delicate balance of power means everyone wins.
Topics: Social Marketing |
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