One website I used to visit regularly was Mlive.com. It provides up to date information on news and sports in Michigan. As a leading online news provider, they were quick to adopt web 2.0 technologies and allow readers to engage in the conversation. In fact, the home page lists the most popular stories in terms of reader comments, updated in real-time. I’ve noticed sports articles are always the most popular, generally commanding 7 out of the top 10 stories. When you read the article and the comments, you realize a majority of the comments are nothing more than a few sports-crazed zealots looking to pick a cyber-fight on a useless topic. Michigan vs. Michigan State, etc. There are even fans of the Detroit Lions! In fact, the first post on every Detroit Lions article is “First”. Seems a few of America’s best and brightest have made a game out of Mlive’s online articles. It has basically rendered the “most popular” feature useless. MLive.com is going to have to adapt.

It seems with UGC, the early adopters are much more interesting than the early majority. Well, at least to me. Maybe there is a large contingency dying to be “first” to post about the Lions and they value the experience? I shouldn’t be so egocentric. This makes me wonder how the industry can react to bring relevance to the reader. Tagging, share and feed features help. Absolutely. But it seems they are not keeping pace with the flood of brainless UGC.

At the heart of this solution is the mythical web 3.0. Where your computer and your websites learn your needs and filter content to your point of view. While I have concerns that such a world would limit my exposure to new experiences, based upon the trend of UGC I’m seeing, I’m ready to give it a try.

Question: In this developing world of social media and digital marketing, we all know that we need to reconsider the way we’re delivering content to our audiences, but do you feel like you have things under control? There are threads everywhere discussing how we’re losing control of the conversations going on around our brands and how we’ve entered into the age of transparency in messaging. The rage today seems to be around monitoring and measuring and conducting damage assessment and control once a conversation is made public. But let’s consider content in the context of measuring and monitoring and think about how brands can move from “reactive content victim” to “proactive participant in a meaningful conversation.”

So then, how are you developing content in the new media age? How are you planning to update all the social media channels and blog(s) your company is launching, or has already launched over the course of the year? These are big questions, and unless you know the answers to them, you may want to consider scaling your digital media plan to accommodate your ability to create content that will effectively represent your brand effectively in a two-way conversation with your audiences. The key word there is “two-way,” because you’re entering an environment that is built on networks and opinions and transparency, and if you’re merely in a position to launch messaging (even if you’ve spent millions of dollars testing its relevance) into the digital space without being able to measure its effectiveness and, more importantly, without having a strategy on how to respond if a conversation erupts around your thought, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable.

As we get into it, here’s a little background on where we are and where we’re heading:

Web 2.0 has enabled a two-way dialogue. Audiences have become “search savvy,” information flows and, most importantly, the line between professional and amateur content has started to blur. The challenge isn’t finding information, it’s knowing what to do with it…

The new age of Web 3.0 is about semantics. It’s enabling a new distribution relationship around content/data centered around Filtering (information and content) and Context (delivering the right message, at the right time, to the right person, with the right device). This approach to content is creating an open source social structure that will allow databases to talk to each other and encourage social network content that urges audiences to use snippets of content as they please and where they please to reach new levels of meaning between brands and audiences.

These changes are creating a MARKETING STRATEGY SHIFT…

Web 2.0 asked us to build massive sites and drive traffic to a place where we could try to control messaging. Web 3.0 is asking us to create content that can travel throughout the digital world via conversations with multiple participants, creating connections that drive content consumption, data collection and new content generation.

So, here’s the rub, and it’s a simple “if/then” proposition: if we’re now in a position that requires us to create content that will enable and respond to conversations about our brand, then how do we generate content plans that aren’t simply focused on feeding information and stories out to audiences, trusting in their ability to run with it? The answer’s simple: plan. Build a plan that maps out your entire content strategy across all your channels for the entire year. Of course, you need to leave some room to be reactive, but if your marketing plans are aligned with your business objectives, you should be able to create a conversation that you can feed to your audiences and interact with in an organized, ongoing basis throughout the year. And if you do this well, you’ll be able to measure not only the sentiment of what’s going on around your brand, but also the effectiveness of your content (for good or bad). Once you know that, you can create a content baseline that allows you to generate planned, targeted content year after year that is valued internally for its measurable effectiveness and externally for your contributions as the subject matter expert around your brand.