Wiki Walks In - take note

© 2004, John Calder
http://www.TheEzine.net

Are blogs soon to be passé? Probably not - but there may soon be a new kid in town. Blogs, by their nature, revolve around the blogger. This is great for marketing purposes. It's a way for your customers to get to know you, and therefore to help build relationships with them. In particular, the reader comments capability that most blog software offers help your readers, customers, and prospects interact with you personally. Now, the wiki is on its way in as yet another alternative for marketers.

A wiki is server-based software that lets a group of people edit the wiki pages as a team. Think of forum software combined with blog software - that's a bit like a wiki, but wikis are much more group-centric than a blog, and much more flexible than forum software. Each member, with proper login access, can contribute to the web pages within the wiki's control. This means they can add, update and delete content. Often the marketer will act as a moderator to approve wiki changes, but wiki users have much greater leeway in making web page changes than almost any other online tool.

How can this help a marketer? For starters, think of the relationship building possibilities. Your customers and others can, in effect, help you build your pages, and really feel like they're part of your business. That will not only help establish your site as a valuable source of information in your field, but with regular wiki updates, your site will continually offer fresh spider food for the search engines. Another example - think how nice it would be to have your documentation and support forum modified and updated by your users themselves.

There are already lots of wikis on every topic imaginable. If you want to be on the front of this trend, check them out now!