So you’re sitting at your desk at your traditional ad agency, marketing firm, or public relations agency and you notice that every day there are more and more empty desks around you. Hmmm I wonder why? Well there is a simple way to keep your desk from being the next empty one: adapt.

So before we dive into me teaching you how to adapt, I am going to assume you are smart enough to know that you need to learn about online marketing (u know that lil thing the kids call the “internets” has been around for over a decade now). I am also going to assume you have a background in traditional marketing, PR, or advertising.

So everything you learned in your marketing classes isn’t completely useless, actually, it is still quite useful, it just needs to be adapted. You have to start somewhere though, so lets start with some basic terminology.

Blogs - A self published journal, newsletter, etc. Usually supports visitor comments/feedback, rss, and trackbacks. Do you need one? Only if you have customers whom you want to talk to, and value their opinion (these opinion things, are pretty important these days). If you are writing an email or physical newsletter you send out everymonth, you should be re-publishing this as a blog on your domain/site. Also things you find too minute for newsletter publishing, but are still useful or valuable to your users/customers, should be posted on your corporate or client’s blog.

Microblogging - think blogging or SMS, but limited to 140-160 characters in length. see Twitter.

SEM - Search Engine Marketing - This is the all encompassing term for everything that deals with buying ads alongside search results on web search engines. Think more off-site work than on-site (your website).

SEO - Search Engine Optimization - This is all about on-site work, and turning your site into something the search engines will love, will understand, and then in turn reward you with higher placement in RELEVANT searches. This is can also be tied heavily into link building. The key is to turn all those years of copywriting experience you have, into something a search engine will understand. So basic things include writing clear and concise content, and avoiding hiding your content from searchers (i.e. inside pretty flash files).

PPC - Pay Per Click aka CPC (cost per click)- A form of online advertising whereby you only pay for leads (clicks) to your website. Google popularized this (but did NOT invent it). If you are on a fixed budget, and want to drive an exact amount of hits to your site, this might be your best bet. Important to note, most PPC systems are designed as auctions, with bidders buying up exposure and demand dictating the prices dynamically.

CTR - Click-through rate: The average number of clicks per 100 views of your ad. Think of this as the number of people who responded to your ad as a percentage of the entire audience. These numbers can tell you how your creative, your copy, or your overall ad are performing.

A/B Testing - Sometimes referred to as multi-variate testing, the idea is that you are comparing several similar creatives, or copies, of a single ad, and trying to determine what is most effective in getting conversions or click-throughs. Because its so easy to create a number of different variations, you can in theory analyze and optimize your message on the fly. Think of it as using the web as your global focus group, and your sites/ads/creatives as the product they are testing and voting on (by either clicking or not clicking).

CPM - Cost Per Mil (Thousand): The amount an ad run costs to be shown in front of 1000 hopefully distinct visitors. There are a number of factors that play into the pricing on this (audience, content of site, site reputation, etc.). This was one of the first models popularized in online banner ads.

CPA - Cost Per Action: Think of this as the easiest form of advertising to measure your ROI on. You only pay when someone completes the desired goal (be it filling out a form, purchasing something, whatever). Lots of affiliate marketing campaigns are built around this idea.

SMO - Social Media Optimization: The idea that you can optimize your content for distribution on social media sites. Effectively fancy way of saying writing interesting copy. Be careful with people selling this service, some are legit and trustworthy, others are snake oil salesmen.

Social Media - Content created by people, not by traditional publishers. Often referred to as user generated content or consumer generated media. Really encompasses everything from social networks to individually created content. The idea being that media/content creation is being democratized and no longer exclusively the realm of traditional mass media creators.

Social Network - A site/service whereby people can create and maintain relationships between themselves and other individuals. The most popular in the US at the moment are Facebook and Myspace. If you are creating any type of product with brand affinity of any kind, you’d be well advised to take notice of social networks, which are fast becoming the top traffic destinations on the web.

Twitter - A revolutionary new (to you) form of communication. Often referred to as micro-blogging, it is really a new means of speaking to and listening to your community (you’ve got a community whether you realize it or not). There will be a follow up post in a few weeks on Twitter for non techies.

Affiliate Marketing - This wasn’t in the original list, but I was reminded of its importance. Affiliate marketing is essentially the idea of enlisting independent third parties to promote your products or services in exchange for a sales commission. Amazon was one of the first companies to start this online (not the first though). The idea being that it allows any individual marketer to come in and start selling thousands of products without owning any physical inventory, or handling any transactions, but still making money.

So remember this list is for those of you who have experience working in traditional advertising, and just need a quick glossary of online keywords.

I get this feeling that there are a lot of industries that don’t truly understand the sheer magnitude of social media. There are tons of industries where we rely on social connections in real life to either facilitate or enhance the business transactions, it seems only logical to extend this to the web. Granted this is a purely superficial look at these industries, and a much deeper technographic and demographic study could help build a more refined social strategy for each one.

Travel
Aside from business travel, this is usually an activity done in groups. So leveraging the power of your existing connections and social graph to find more information on potential destinations or deals would be an ideal solution. Whose opinion would you trust more, your cousin Bob, or some anonymous web troll when you’re planning that trip to cancun?

Trip planning. Nothing is as much of a pain as trying to plan a trip with a group of people. So why not figure out a way to simplify things. Look at how dopplr and tripit are starting, and take it from there.  These are areas where the airlines and travel sites should be dominating.

Another key area where travel is failing on social media is in the post-trip/re-engagement phase. Why aren’t travel companies leveraging all the content these travelers just created (EVERYONE has a digital camera of some sort)?

Real Estate
Part of what you buy when you buy a home or condo is the community, a large part of it to be exact. So developers, realtors, and real estate information sites need to build the tools for connecting the property owners/renters to the community/web.  The stronger bonds that can be built through these networks, the stronger the physical community becomes.  This also plays well into the buying/selling of a home through the web, as it gives potential buyers access to the value-add that is the future neighbors and their wealth of knowledge.  Also correlate the value of where my friends might be living now, as that would definitely play a role in my house hunting.

There is a wealth of information out there today that is just waiting to be mashed up: photos (geocoded to boot), maps, zoning info, crime info, transportation, shopping, etc. This is definitely an example where the sum is more valuable than all the parts individually.

Apparel Shopping
Women’s fashion is built on one thing: what other women will think about each others outfits. Women don’t buy clothes to impress men, its to impress other women.  Women also tend to shop as a social activity, so why isn’t anyone translating this to the web?  Where are the sites that let people share fashion ideas, fashion tips, or deals? There are tons of visual tools out there that are just waiting to be pieced together.  I think a key component to this is for the fashion industry to understand what is driving web use, then see how these things can be leveraged by social utilities.

The branding potential in social networks for these brands to leverage is amazing. Its the ultimate use for social ads and leveraging personal recommendations. (Think, what do my friends think about this shirt, etc.) Imagine seeing on a shopping site “Your friend Jane bought this in red, you might also like the black.”

Entertainment
Last but certainly not least is the entertainment industry (movies, music, tv, games, etc.). The entertainment industry could stand to gain the most of all from leveraging social graphs and social media in a way that benefits both them and the consumers. Instead of running away scared of the beast that is the consumer and user generated content, they should take a page from Chamillionaire’s book and go to where the fans are.  Help them find/discover (like ilike or last.fm), help them create (video, audio, whatever), and help them make it dead simple to evangelize your product.

Realistically entertainment is one of the most powerful industries for leveraging social. Most of the activities we do in relation to this industry is social in nature (going to the movies, playing games, watching tv, and listening to music. They are all things we can do as individuals, but for the most part are improved when we add friends. They all also tend to be things that people use to identify themselves with (rocker, hip hop fan, jazz fan, anime fan, etc.).

Now this all may seem very superficial, and it is, but this post was really intended to spark the discussion within your organizations, not give you all a clear cut roadmap (that would make it too easy).

Let me preface this post by saying I dislike the versioning of the web, especially the “Web2.0” term, however I do feel the web has gone through evolutionary stages. Also for all intents and purposes, this historical analysis starts in 1995.  This post is inspired by a chat that Alex and I had last fall, and which was brought back up a few days ago

So where did it all start?
The first iteration of the web was all about the connecting of documents to each other. This was the basis of the hyperlink. Hyperlinks were designed to interlink files and documents by specifying their locations.  Think Yahoo directories, and Netscape 1.0.

So now we’re building things
The second iteration or evolution of the web was all about building tools for people to create these documents. One could argue that started with geocities, tripod, angelfire, and all the other personal homepage tools of the mid nineties.  This is the user generated phase of the web. This is what I think of when I think of “Web2.0.”

But how do we socialize?
The third generation/iteration/evolution was less about creating content, but more about linking the content creators together (previous generations tools were by now commoditized to the point they were functions, not the focus). So this was the social network phase if you like.  Users were now being connected directly to each other, and the finding/discovery of new content was shifted from a machine controlled aspect to a social function.

They’re my friends, not yours
The fourth stage is where we see the tools to let us create our own links between people and take these links wherever we choose.  This is the advent of portable social networks and personal social networks.  Of all the “graphs” we have interconnecting us today, email is quite possibly the easiest system of connections we have to port.  This is a big huge play on the parts of Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, the three kings of email.

So what does this all mean?
Well in a nutshell, it means that we’ll be seeing a number of players adopt or propose their own standards for data portability. Either true data portability, email portability, ID portability, or something else will get a likely boost in the near future.  The prize it seems is in controlling the creation of these networks and tracking them all (think observing how swarms of insects or schools of fish behave).

I waited a week before writing this, why? Well I was busy, and I wanted things to settle a  bit before I kicked up the dust again. But the AOL buy of Bebo is a much bigger deal than we are all realizing or giving AOL credit for. So the $850 Million might seem like an obscene price to some (lest we forget some other large purchases of the last few years make this pale in comparison), and to others it is simply confusing. How could AOL plunk down the equivalent of $20/user on what is ultimately a 3rd place network in the US?

Why the numbers make sense.
AOL’s mostly cash deal gives them an instant boost on the social network scene where their AIM pages project died after not receiving much if any fanfare (AOL seemingly didn’t bother informing their AIM users about it).  It gives AOL a big foothold overseas, where it is still weak compared to its competitors. It also gives it a big chance to cross promote its newly acquired service via AIM, AOL.com, netscape.com and the hundreds of other content properties they own.  For AOL it might be a challenge to recoup the initial investment fast, but they have a much better ability to monetize those page views than most of the players.

Remember AOL owns advertising.com and its whole PlatformA initiative encompasses many advanced ad targeting services that were just waiting for access to billions more in page views to data mine.

What you are all missing.
So AOL now owns 40 million user profiles, now what? Well one thing that people are forgetting is that Bebo has built a fairly robust representation of the social graph on their site. This data which is a goldmine for marketers is probably the second best set of social graph data on the web behind Facebook’s.  So if you think about it, they got a data set about half the size of Facebook’s for about 1/15th the cost.

Stop looking at the battle, and focus on the war.
Folks, the issue isn’t about social networks directly, its about behavioral advertising. Understanding what people want by observing them and then serving both contextual and targeted advertising to them as they search/surf through their properties.  We as a collective whole keep forgetting this about Yahoo (don’t forget they have 400million user profiles, maybe more) being one of the kings at this, but thats another story entirely.  The behavioral battle is being waged on all fronts, but what it ultimately needs is enough  page view inventory to be truly useful to the data crunchers, and thats what a few billion page views a day will give you if you’re AOL/Bebo.

So where do we go from here?
Well I really see AOL trying to promote the heck out of Bebo, and hopefully working on improving their infrastructure substantially. But the first thing we’ll see is Bebo beating the 2008 earnings estimates they had set forth simply by having AOL up their CPM rates from $.50 to $2.  If Time Warner wasn’t such a bad fit with AOL, I would almost recommend buying AOL right now, but then again, maybe AOL + Platform A will be spun off, which would definitely change the game.