If Web 1.0 was all about chatrooms, tacky banner exchanges and cute emoticons, Web 2.0 is all about social networking, interactivity and user-generated content. So which sites are the icons of Web 2.0? Well, social networking websites (FaceBook, MySpace, Bebo, etc.), social bookmarking sites (Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.) and, of course, the grand daddy of user-provided information, Wikipedia, are a few examples of the new icons of the Web 2.0 universe.

Internet marketers look upon any Web 2.0 site as a source of solid traffic. They open up their own pages on Web 2.0 sites and interact with the members, whip up frenzy and drive people to their own websites. The result is terrific: more traffic, more backlinks, and more word-of-mouth publicity - and this one comes for free - ahh, what more can an Internet marketer want?

Is it as easy as it seems?

Nope, it ain't. Web 2.0 marketing requires tremendous amount of time and effort, and yet you can't always figure out for sure whether you will get casual visitors (who just hang around and leave) or hardcore shoppers who're willing to swipe their cards. Here then are some fundamental guidelines for making your Web 2.0 marketing campaign successful:

1. First, your website will need to look chic and have quality content that informs and entertains. It must build a feeling of credibility in the person reporting, and it must be easy to read.

2. People like to hang around social networking websites just to kill time, so that must be a part of your traffic funneling system. Know that they are simply there to hang out and not buy. If you want to try and divert them to your website, it has to be really pulling piece of advertising copy, something entertaining like videos, games, audio, commentary and the like. It must hook the reader and entice them to read more. If you come at them with a sales pitch, it will immediately turn them off and you will wind up without sales.

3. You shouldn't approach your Web 2.0 marketing campaign in a half-hearted manner. If you have decided to go the whole hog, then you must put in a whole lot of time and effort to plug in informative-cum-entertaining content, and finally you can leave a small link in your signature that links to your website.

4. On Web 2.0 websites, your goal is to make pals, not sell. So, your posts have to be informal and conversational, devoid of heavy jargon.

5. You shouldn't expect Web 2.0 marketing to draw traffic automatically to your site the way pay per click campaigns operate. It doesn't work like that as you are not paying for people to read your stuff.

6. You don't want to start Web 2.0 marketing when your site is just starting or if the site is mediocre and sales are just average. Web 2.0 marketing techniques are good for established, working sites. Marketing this way needs to happen when you have a decent amount of content to offer arriving visitors.

These cover just a few of the basics of Web 2.0 marketing. Where ever you start with marketing in this new virtual world, will be a learning curve and stepping stone to more success. The sooner you start, the quicker you'll have results. Good luck in your pursuits.

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