The Web 2.0 technologies created a new type of online customers. Web users consume and create content and share experiences and opinions directly with each other. So, what does this mean for your organization? Your company needs a strategy to thrive in the online world’s environment of constant change.

The article “Managing beyond Web 2.0” proposes a strategy called LEAD (listen, experiment, apply, develop) that will help companies to manage the external image.

Listen: The organization needs to monitor and analyze what the customers are saying about the company. Use this information as an early-warning system. Probably customers are already talking about you on Facebook or Twitter? Sounds a bit like paranoia, but don’t underestimate the rapidness of change. If your organization says or does something right now, it may be discussed in the web community a couple of hours later. Instead of pushing your message to the customers, you should listen to them engage with them actively.

Experiment: There are a lot of fancy Web 2.0 tools out there – play with them. Create a company profile on social-networking sites, a blog or a daily tweet. There is no proper ROI metric available yet for measuring the effect of the Web 2.0 technology usage, but for sure it will pay off in greater customer awareness and brand engagement.

Apply: After your experiments you should apply the technologies in your company. Stay in touch with your customers; make it simple for them to communicate with you. Optimize your social-networking sites for search engines. Be visible for your target audience. To measure your success in this process step you can use web tools and quantitative analysis to track the results of your experiments. For example, every bigger blog hosting site offers tools to analyze the traffic on your blog.

Develop: The Internet is a social medium and therefore a very important part of any company’s marketing mix. But don’t see just another marketing channel to put all your messages in. Get rid of the mass-media broadcast mentality and make interactive Web 2.0 elements part of your marketing program.

I found this four-step-strategy very logical. It’s easy to understand and simplifies the Web 2.0 adoption process. What’s missing is the organizational impact. Who is choosing the Web 2.0 channels? Is the Web 2.0 communication centralized or decentralized? Who is creating the content – the marketing experts or the experts in the functional teams?

What do you think about the LEAD-strategy? Did you already implement a strategy for adopting Web 2.0 technologies? What are your experiences with Web 2.0 technologies so far? How did you organize the adoption process?