Marketing 2.0 is a natural outgrowth of Web 2.0 as it refers to the transformation of marketing resulting from the network effect of the Internet. Marketing 2.0 represents a dramatic shift in marketing to account for customers researching and buying goods and services independent of advertising and marketing campaigns and messages. With broadband as the new utility in the household and at work, customers now make decisions on their own terms, relying - in seconds - on friends, family, colleagues, and other trusted networks to form opinions.

Where traditional advertising and marketing is based on key messages and support points in an attempt to force a purchase decisions, Marketing 2.0 is based on authentic, real content used to fuel conversations and purchase decisions in a manner that allows the customer to draw their own conclusions. Traditional media may be used in Marketing 2.0 - online and offline - but media is used to talk about content, not brand or product positioning. "Creative concepts" are left behind in favor of "content concepts."

This shift has dramatic implications for how marketing gets created. For marketing agencies - the communications consultants to their clients - it means relying on a different process, skills, and set of deliverables in order to brand, engage, and sell to customers. The process puts content front and center as the means to engage the market. Required skills now include editorial, documentary, gaming, and other content-related capabilities rather than copywriting, art direction, and creative direction. Deliverables now include content and the ability to promote content rather than brand and product creative concepts. Promoting the content may also include participating in social networks in a fully disclosed, credible fashion.

For marketing organizations, it means aligning with communications agencies that put content at the center of what they do or driving similar process, skill set, and deliverable changes with an in-house service.

With Marketing 2.0, messages don't matter. It's about fueling purchase decisions rather than forcing them. And the future belongs to crowds.

Examples of Marketing 2.0

Marketing 2.0 is about turning transactions into interactions and interruptions into integrations. Here are some examples of what that translates into:

Marketing 1.0	Marketing 2.0
Commercials	Product placements
Press releases	Blog posts
Direct mail	Email
Push content	Pull content(Search Engine Marketing)
Collateral	Videos/podcasts/vcasts
Seminars	Webinars/Virtual Environments (i.e 2nd Life)
Business generated content	User generated content & product innovation
Building websites	Building communities/social networks

The Ultimate Blueprint for Social Networking: The Howard Stern Show

After being deluged with tons of social media hype over the past year, and always trying to figure out the most pragmatic way in which to implement social networking, I suddenly found a blueprint for success in my favorite morning radio show.

If you look at the key elements of success for any social media program to work it’s got to be conversational, collaborative, authentic, efficient and real time. Well isn’t that what has made “The Howard Stern Show” a fan favorite all these years?

Take conversational for example. This is the core essence of the Stern show. Its Howard’s conversations with the listeners, his show hosts, and guests. Howard supports all sorts of media channels to support the conversation. The phone, email, the web, a user community (Stern Fan Network), and a listener forum after every show (The Wrap Up Show). In fact the whole show is really driven by and for the listeners in many ways.

This leads us into collaborative. The show owes much of its success to user generated content and ideas. The show is always open to listener submissions and feed back, often in real time. Take many of the shows parody sing alongs developed and sent in by the listeners. There was even a recent Stern Movie Festival where the listeners submitted films. With forums like the Stern Fan Network, The Wrap Up Show and the Super Fan Round Table, die hard Stern fans can provide immediate feed back on that days show. In fact some of the listeners, like Riley Martin, even have their own radio show on Howard’s Sirius satellite radio channel

The Howard Stern Show is certainly authentic. If Howard doesn’t like your feedback, comments or content he will let you know in real time. I don’t think a show can be more authentic than that.

I think it goes without saying that the Stern show is efficient and is certainly real time. There is a lot of content and ideas generated by the listener community so I would imagine this makes the costs of overall production lower. Nothing beats the real time feedback of Howard to some listener’s lame idea

.

So before we had the Internet, email and fancy terms like social networking the Howard Stern Show was creating a user based community that drove vision, direction and content and ultimately huge success