Fourth Installment in the “Doing More With Less” Series
I’ve done a number of short presentations to folks on Web 2.0 and I have started to imagine the beginning with the room dark and the 2001 A Space Odyssey music in the background. The announcer voice guy would say:
“In the beginning there was web 1.0. Businesses loaded information about their company or organization on the web for anyone who found it.”
As the music continues playing he says, “Now there is web 2.0 – we post the information on our website, in blogs, on Facebook, My Space, Twitter, Ning, Linked-In, etc. and, now the customers get to respond back.”
Maybe you haven’t tweeted yet on Twitter or created a Facebook or My Space page and you aren’t networking on LinkedIn or GovLoop. But odds are most people will be. I just read today that the assumption that these social media sites are predominantly used by young people is becoming false. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that the number of social networking profiles owned by adults has quadrupled in the last four years.
But, if you are getting into these sites, be sure to visit Virginia State Parks. We are excited about the opportunity to receive real time feedback from our customers. Some of what we have learned in the last few months is driving decisions we make about adding more pictures to our website, investigating ways to let customers know when we have to close a facility or have emergency issues at one of our parks. Not to mention the fact that being present on those sites is yet another way of reaching new people who are unfamiliar with Virginia State Parks.