The Future of Internet Marketing – Advertising Goes Web 2.0

Ever since the internet marketing phenomenon broke onto the scene, everyone’s wanted a piece of the action. Major companies invest millions of dollars in online advertising campaigns. Politicians have websites and blogs that they update daily. Freelance writers have never had an easier time finding work. The key to the future of marketing online lies in the most recent web phenomenon that the internet has seen: Web 2.0. We’re getting to a point where traditional marketing strategies like simply opening a website and paying for banner ads on other popular websites is becoming cliché. The internet is diving headfirst into the Web 2.0 movement, and marketing is right there with it.

Web 2.0 is the concept of creating web applications that facilitate interaction, information sharing, and collaboration on the web. The focus of Web 2.0 is community: allowing users to come together to dialog and interact in a forum that allows them to share common ideas and receive feedback from other users. This is actually good news for internet marketing because this means that businesses only need to set up and maintain the community and the users will take care of the rest. Such a strategy will generate positive buzz about the business.

The advent of social networking has forever changed the concept of internet marketing. Websites like Facebook and Twitter allow users to become fans of certain businesses or websites. This exponentially increases the potential for a company to launch a viral ad campaign. In the past, an advertiser could only put out an advertisement and hope that they’d paid to show it in enough venues to get the exposure they wanted. Now, they can stop worrying about the breadth of their coverage and spend more time on the quality of what they’re putting out there. The more interesting their ad concept, the more likely it is to go viral, thanks to their network of fans or followers.

Web 2.0 has forever changed the focus of internet marketing. Social networking is the direction in which advertising is headed. The focus can no longer simply be on producing an interesting ad campaign, although this certainly helps. Since all users are connected to other users, it now matters what these users think of the advertiser’s product, so it’s more important than ever before to manufacture a quality product. If you do, positive buzz will spread naturally. If you don’t, then negative buzz may be your downfall.