With lofty objectives, a multi-execution approach to Web 2.0 marketing is essential. The leitmotif throughout the Web 2.0 marketing strategy I'll describe is: business influence, thought leadership, and trust-building content & engagements.

In our case, we had a mandate to:

- Drive brand recognition in our market segment

- Establish ourselves as trusted advisors

- Generate new prospects through webinars, blogs, Twitter, and other social networks such as LinkedIn

- Engage with influencers, to create content of substantial business value

In strategizing how, we looked to Social Media Today’s MyVenturepad, the online community for growth businesses and the business influencers tackling business critical questions and solutions.

MyVenturePad.com (MVP) has well over 1200+  members with 75 business advisors and influencers very active on the site.  Key active influencers: Vern Harnish, Chad Moutray, Paul Greenberg, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, Barbara Weltman and others provide thought leadership and content which I’ll call “conversation starters.”  

MVP creates further demand through webinars, in-depth case studies for download, podcast series on e.g. “Leadership”, “Growth in a down economy.” MyVenturePad’s steady growth in membership, posts, comments, unique visitors, and inbound links, proves that the best way to have an online conversation is to listen, engage appropriately for the culture you’re in, and provide business value to the community.

Allow me to demonstrate the Web 2.0 Marketing strategy more tactically. In order to leverage a brilliant piece of thought leadership around “Recession-proofing Your Business” - developed by Barbara Weltman, noted small-bus advisor and author - our team architected a webinar series around the paper’s premise: "Weathering the Economy.”       

We identified, engaged with and provided 12 expert influencers for this online forum to attract participation by small and mid-sized companies; plus press and analyst interest. We set up a discussion forum before, during, and after the webinars on both MVP and LinkedIn so that the influencers would be accessible – several ways - “live” to the participants. 

To interest net new prospects and extend the strong affinity group formed on MVP, we went a step further and worked with thought leaders who posted timed and targetted “Featured Questions” on LinkedIn. The first ‘Featured Question’ was posted by business influencer: Chad Moutray, generating 1069 responses in 6 days. Through the power of collective wisdom of the social network, an organically - grown leadership piece titled “Top 10 Measures Small businesses can take to Weather the Economy” – developed by SAP, LinkedIn, and the Small Business Administration resulted.

To add some meat to the bone, we chose advertising for our Webinar series on LinkedIn; with a LinkedIn “Text Link” and an Ad Unit. LinkedIn “InMail” was yet another option we considered; especially when seeking to reach a person of a particular title or level; or from a specific industry. As a result of promotion through social networks, we recruited more prospects to the webinar series and attracted a new wave of interest in more than just our brand.   

A strong Web 2.0 marketing strategy permits prospects to value their experience with you - no matter how they’ve waltzed upon your company’s offer – and no matter from which online community they’ve come. Have we earned their trust? As good custodians of these online communities, we’ve proven how to leave them each better off than they were when we arrived.