And the Winner is…Web 2.0

Post #7–Two Women Business–Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler

In my post yesterday I talked about the power of Web 2.0 to create a groundswell for products, whether that be a political candidate, ballot measure…or your book, service or latest widget. The case made by our recent elections serves as such a clear example that I want to follow up with a few numbers I’ve come across. The disparity in the social media presence between Senator John McCain and President-elect Barack Obama illustrates how Obama could raise record sums from so many small contributors.

• 150 million blog posts about John McCain v. 500 million posts mentioning Barack Obama (according to post on ReadWriteWeb).
• Just 224,254 MySpace friends for McCain v. 867,074 friends for Obama (figures as of 11/6/08)
• 4917 followers on Twitter for McCain v. 119,762 followers for Obama (figures as of 11/6/08).

So what do the numbers tell us? You should start building your ground game today. As entrepreneurs and authorpreneurs you can use social networking to create more than just buzz. You can connect with your customers and prospects (to provide a higher level of service) and build word of mouth support, both powerful marketing tools. And you can make sales. Social media translates into real dollars.

Your first step is to move away from your static Website and start running your site on a blog platform like WordPress. And when you start posting your blogs, aggressively use tags, keywords and search engine optimization. You’ll build valuable Web presence. While this is important regardless the market you are trying to reach, it’s absolutely essential if you target the Gen X and Gen Y markets (consumers 14 to 44). Fully 90 percent of the 130.5 million young consumers in the United States rely on the Internet for most of their information. Their collective annual income? Almost $6 trillion.

If you’re not sure how to start, let an Internet marketer help you develop a professional blog and create a blogging and social networking strategy. Getting started is not expensive, and once you’re up and running you’ll easily be able to manage most of the site yourself. This is a cost-effective strategy with huge potential for payoff.