Because Web 2.0 invites participation, you can utilize it to promote and market your business. Whereas in 1990 your “web site” might have consisted of nothing more than a static-looking business card, today your site can be totally interactive.
Depending on your product, you might invite customers to write reviews, modify descriptions, add comments, and much more. If you have a blog, be sure to enable comments so that your readers can share information with you (more on that in a moment).
Because of the give-and-take social nature of Web 2.0, customers tend to bookmark and revisit your pages often. The customers themselves carry out the “updates” to your site. For example, if you offer a forum, you will find that members strike up conversations with each other, often with little prompting from you. This gives you more “hits” to your site, resulting in higher rankings; it also serves as an update to your webpage.
Letting customers have free reign to comment on your products may seem scary at first, but it can give you the tools you need to improve your product line and your business. Plus the sense of ownership those customers develop causes them to have a loyalty that you would not have seen in the 1990s.
Plus, as visitors become customers and read your blog, your emails, or your other communications, they feel as if they know you—creating even more loyalty. If you're old enough to remember walking to the corner market as a child to get an ice cream cone, then you know exactly how that feels. You wouldn't have dreamed of going to the Minute Market or 7-11 Store when Mr. Smith's grocery had exactly what you needed—and he knew you. He asked about your family, your school grades, and your dog. That's the kind of relationship that Web 2.0 can help you develop, if you do it right: a sense of camaraderie.
Web 2.0 is easy to integrate into your website and your business. It’s considered a “lightweight” business model. It works sort of like a beta software—the content and interaction continually changes. Any reader is free to change it or improve it, if you set it up that way.