Where is Web 2.0 on the ROI Chart?

The accompanying chart was developed several years ago, before the term “Web 2.0” was coined. Now I am being asked where Web 2.0 is on this chart.

If you are not familiar with the chart, let me explain that this is a list of the most common online marketing tactics listed in the order of their cost-effectiveness in terms of creating leads and results starting at the top and working down. The more results a tactic will bring for its cost, the better your return on marketing investment (ROI).

ROI Chart Description

So where is Web 2.0 on the chart? Well, I’m famous—or maybe infamous—for saying, “Web 2.0 is Web 1.0 for dummies.” That’s a little harsh, but what I really mean is that it is more like Web 201 vs. Web 101—Internet marketers have gained better understanding. Web logs (blogs) aren’t new, there are just many more people who have discovered them and social networking has been around as long as email and discussion boards. I will grant that there are better tools and more bandwidth to pass around your music and pictures, but the social Internet has been around nearly as long as the Internet has. It seems to me that marketers who use the term “Web 2.0” have just discovered what the Web is all about.

To answer the question (finally) Web 2.0 is in the white section at the top of the chart, the Rapport Building section. Web 2.0 or the Social Web is about customer referral—getting people to blog or blogging yourself about products/services that you use or provide. It is about PR and link building—getting a lot of paths built to your website. It is about search engine ranking, getting more referring links or votes to tell Google that your site is important for your particular products or service.

Web 2.0 is about building your reputation and gaining traffic to your site. It is more of a PR realm than an advertising platform—advertising on social networking sites has not proven to be any more effective than banner advertising.

So, get out there and create your professional profiles and write your blogs and get your site tagged. Web 2.0 is a good thing, it is rapport building marketing.