(This is an article I wrote for the December issue of Warrenton Lifestyle Magazine, a wonderful local magazine covering my quaint Virginia hometown, produced by Piedmont Press and Graphics. If you arrived here after reading the article ... please leave your thoughts in the comment section ... especially how you think social media could be used to improve Warrenton, or any hometown/community. And if you're not experienced with social media, share if you plan on diving into Web Two-Point-You waters any time soon)
Question: do you know what Web 2.0 is all about? If your first thought is “when did we leave the first Web?” then please read on. And if you consider yourself a savvy surfer of digital waters, please read on as well, because at the end of this article I’m going to invite you to share your thoughts about what I’ve said. That invitation, in part, is what Web 2.0 is all about.
I’ve been asked numerous times to offer up a definition of Web 2.0, and I usually begin by telling people that there are as many different answers as people you ask, like clowns spilling out of a Volkswagen Beetle. But this is the way I see what has taken place over the past six or so years.
Web 1.0 (1990s through about 2003) was pretty much a one-way street. You went to a website and consumed information or purchased something. It became far easier to search for that new or vacation home, make your own investment decisions (ETrade), or sell those ‘valuables’ you had in storage (hello eBay).
Web 2.0 is a two-way street, where new tools enable you to interact, connect, contribute, and respond. Web 2.0 is about participation. You don’t just consume, you produce. You are in control, deciding which restaurants to praise or punish (reviews on Yelp), which videos to share with friends (who hasn’t seen Susan Boyle?), when to comment in a blog post, or whether to begin blogging yourself.
The explosion of Social Media is a natural progression of Web 2.0. Going to Wikepedia (makes sense, since the popular user-generated encyclopedia is a prime example of Web 2.0 collaboration), social media is defined as “media designed to be disseminated through social interaction” … “transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many)”. In 2006, when it first appeared on Wikipedia, social media was defined as a term “used to describe media which are formed mainly by the public as a group, in a social way, rather than media produced by journalists, editors and media conglomerates”.
The term ‘citizen journalist’ arrived on the scene over the past few years, with camera and video-equipped smartphones giving anyone the ability to instantly publish images or video or text to the web. The first image captured in the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’, when that plane crash- landed in New York, was an iPhone picture taken by a passenger on a ferry that was first to arrive on the scene. That image was pushed out and passed around via social media tools to millions of people within hours (and used by the major TV and Cable news networks as well).
Social networking sites are the great enablers of anything and everything relating to social media. You can connect with people all over the world or right next door via Twitter (140 characters at a time), deploy a Fan Page for your business on Facebook, (Carousel Frozen Treats gained 2,000 fans in just two months), or use Linkedin as a digital rolodex and resume.
It can be overwhelming to try and grasp all that has happened, and continues to happen online. I tell people that are confused by it all, or resistant to it all, that you don’t have to ‘get it all’. It’s a digital buffet, and you can pick and choose what fits your lifestyle, needs, preferences and goals. And let’s come full circle, back to ‘you’, because all of this wonderful technology is supposed to help you, right? As opposed to making your personal or business worlds more complicated.
There has never been a better time to take the reigns and connect/say/be/do what you want – to tell your story - thanks to this wild and wonderful thing I like to now call the Evolving Web. So whether you’re diving into social media waters to connect with friends and family, or wondering how you ignite word-of-mouth markting to promote your business, the barriers to begin are very low. The downside? Lots of noise, for one. Web 2.0 empowers people to have a voice, and there are now millions now clamoring for attention online. The upside? The ability to ‘digitally connect’ with people near and far. People who you can learn from, and who can learn from you. People who are fans of your business and who are willing to be ambassadors for it.
The bottom line: you are in control now. You can choose to begin blogging (or mico-blogging via Twitter) to tell your story, whether personal or business related. You can choose to begin to learn what works for you and what doesn’t, and take advantage of some of the wonderful technology that exists today. If you’re a small business owner, it doesn’t matter if you personally don’t like social media, because a lot of your customers do. And so you at least have to understand where consumers are going, and decide to meet them there. Because they are in control now, whether you like it or not.
This is a disruptive, delightful, overwhelming and exciting age we live in. I love the digital side of life. Do you? Share your thoughts about social media and the web, and how you think it can be used to make Warrenton a better place for us all (I have some ideas of my own). Leave your comments to this article on the Warrenton Lifestyle Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/warrentonlifestyle. I’ll also post this article on my blog, www.brickandclick.com, and you’re welcome to continue the conversation there.
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Jeff Crites spends part of his work time with a strategic communications team that helps the Army tell its story on its website and through social media. He spends the rest of his work time helping small businesses do the same. He and his wife Sue, a children’s book author, live in Warrenton with their two dogs Emma and Sophie. Connect with him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/brickandclick; Twitter: http://Twitter.com/brickandclick or Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffcrites
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