Self Promotion 1.0 vs. 2.0 – What is the difference and why it can put your company out of business?

So what exactly is this Social Networking, Social Media and all of this Web 2.0? Why is it so important and how can I use it for self promotion?

Part 1 of a 2 part article

Most of us are familiar with the term “Social Media” as it is coined to include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg, and all of the other Web 2.0 online portals. You hear it in conversation, in the news and in sales and marketing circles all the time: “What is your social media strategy?” How are you using Social Business for promotions? Or “Is social media marketing a waste a time?”. You get the picture. The term Social Media refers to an all encompassing Web 2.0 or New Age strategy to the web.

Interestingly enough Social Media is only 1/3 (one third) of the story. Social Media refers to only a few online software companies that use Media in some way or another. Media includes most of the time photos, video or audio although you could argue text can be thrown into the equation. What’s my point? Social Media is not the whole picture; it is only one part of Web 2.0. The other two popular parts of this equation are Social Networking and Social Bookmarking.

Here are some Social Media Companies:
• YouTube.com
• Flicker.com
• Digg.com

Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace are not officially “social media” as they are “social networking”. We’ll explore why and how you can use all of them for self promotion.

Before we dive any further into Social Media let’s start by exploring what Web 2.0 is and how it is different from the “typical” web that you and I know, or Web 1.0. All of the other definitions like Social Networking and Social Media are part of this Web 2.0 medium so we’ll bunch them all together. We will refer to Web 2.0 to the overall strategy including Social Media, Social Networking and Social Bookmarking. The keyword here being “social”. Why? Because there is interaction in all these sites and in this new strategy; and interaction will be the name of the game.

About Web 1.0

I remember when you web was growing it was the hottest thing around. I was straight out of college and small businesses where wondering if they needed a website or not. It was not cheap and it was not a given that everyone had a website. Yes, if you were an early adopter or a marketing visionary you knew everyone deeded one. I remember telling many small business owners: It’s not if you need a website, it’s if you’ll survive without a website. Nowadays it’s the same thing with Web 2.0 strategy. Do I need a blog? Should I be on LinkedIn? Well, either you’re there, or you’ll not be in business for long! So what is Web 1.0? It is your fathers’ internet! It is unidirectional, the information is pushed, it is not social and it is definitely not interactive.

How would you use Web 1.0 self promotion strategy? Simple, you do a super great looking website telling people about you, your company or your products. This is a beautifully branded website with all the bells and whistles. Nice colors, photos of you’re your products, information about what you sell with photos or even videos. You even have the history of the company and some great looking case studies people can read or even download. You have a winner! Once people decide they like something they subscribe to your newsletter or even go to the “Contact Us’ button and fill out the information there so you can follow up. Yes, this is a great Web 1.0 strategy, but it is still a Web 1.0 strategy and not a Web 2.0. You are making one of the largest mistakes in self promotion, marketing and sales and breaking the universal rules of dating in the process! You’re talking about yourself.

Web 1.0 is the web we all know and grew up with (unless you are 12 years old, then you grew up with Web 2.0). It is a world wide web filled with informative, personal, and business information related to us in the form of websites. Nowadays there are websites for almost any type of business and every possible topic. You can find news, universal information, photos, videos, everything.

You see, in Web 1.0 you get information, news, videos and other content but you can’t push back content, ideas, or information. You just get to look for websites and read them. If you have a company website you list your products, services, contact information and any other relevant content. If you have a personal website it works pretty much in the same manner. You go in, you read and then you exit the site. It is an online brochure. Yes, maybe a sophisticated brochure with photos, videos, and audio, but still a brochure.

In Web 1.0 you do have a little collaboration, but mostly for large companies working in intranets or extranets to publish information accessible to others in the company, or to collaborate in specific projects or documents. In 1999 I was working as VP for an online collaboration company helping large companies manage projects, relationships, calendars, notes and tasks much like many of the current free or low cost applications. The different is that back then these applications were not free. They were only reserved for large companies and started at the low price of $150,000 for one server license. This was state of the art back in 1999. It was what all CTO’s, CIO’s and CEO’s looked for at the time. What was the vision, what these Fortune companies wanted to do? Collaborate with customers. It was the beginning of Web 2.0, of interactivity, of collaboration.

The world of Web 1.0 is a great world. You can find almost anything very quickly on the internet, read, send emails, publish a website for you or your business and show it to the world.

All right, by now you may be asking yourself why we need a Web 2.0 if Web 1.0 sounds so good. It really does, but it’s lacking one thing, and maybe one thing only, but it is a very large thing. It’s lacking interaction.