Web 2.0 tools can be used to do what traditional advertising does: persuade consumers to buy a company’s products or services. An executive can write a blog, for instance, that regularly talks up the company’s goods. But that kind of approach misses the point of 2.0. Instead, companies should use these tools to get the consumers involved, inviting them to participate in marketing-related activities from product development to feedback to customer service.

How can you do that? A leading greeting-card and gift company that we spoke with is one of many that have set up an online community — a site where it can talk to consumers and the consumers can talk to each other. The company solicits opinions on various aspects of greeting-card design and on ideas for gifts and their pricing. It also asks the consumers to talk about their lifestyles and even upload photos of themselves, so that it can better understand its market.

web 2.0 brands

Web 2.0 marketing is about leveraging social networks to spread the message about your brand.  Instead of buying traditional advertising or PR, a good  viral marketing campaign can spread the word about your product or service in surprisingly effective ways. Users post their reviews, blog articles, news, photos, videos, or twitters and the word spreads from there.  Web 2.0 marketing is also an effective way to boost search engine rankings. Its all about users creating their own word of mouth advertising. Done correctly, this form of viral marketing can land your product or service on radio in print and TV, making Web 2.0 one of the most effective forms of PR.

Here are just a few the top 10 web 2.0 resources:

Twitter.com Mini blogs of random thoughts and not so random thoughts.

CraigsList.org A great city by city resource, post your product and sell away

USFreeAds.com – Free classifieds. Place your classified ads here – Huge traffic, active buyers and tens of thousands of fresh daily visitors ensure your items sell fast.

TechCrunch.com – Startup and Technology News.

DIGG.com – Is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users.

StumbleUpon.com – Discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.

Del.icio.us – Social bookmarking for the masses.

Reddit.com – Is a source for what’s new and popular online. Reddit learns what you like as you vote on existing links or submit your own!

BlinkList.com – Real people with shared interests list the websites they care about. Rate sites you like or save them for later.

BuddyMarks.com – The Online Bookmark Manager. The Web’s best online personal, group and social bookmarks manager.

Netvouz.com – is a social bookmark manager where you can store your favorite links online and access them from any computer. You organize your bookmarks in folders and tag each bookmark with keywords and can then browse them by folder or tag, or search for them.

TagTooga.com - Discover the Best of the Web, Add your Site, and Organize your Bookmarks with TagTooga – a Web 2.0 Social Bookmarking / Wiki.