In an era where customers openly compliment, criticize and discuss your services and products, and thousands of other viewers read these comments, getting into Web 2.0 marketing can make even the tough skinned shudder.

However, love it or hate it, Web 2.0 is here. If your business is online, which it should be, you can choose to ignore the Web 2.0 movement or choose to embrace it.

You may not be able to control messages being published by your audiences, but you can influence the conversations by actively listening to and participating in and learning from them.

Do you have ideas for new products or services? Use active conversations to gather information and improve and re-design your product-giving your customers what they really want. This is what gives Web 2.0 marketers the edge over other retailers who are still on the periphery, hesitant to test the Web 2.0 waters.

With several innovative marketing channels opening, online marketers have many opportunities for reaching out to customers. The downside of having so many choices is that newcomers to web 2.0 are likely to be overwhelmed.

Where do you start? Which option is best? Finding the match for your business takes time and a deep understanding how different techniques will affect your audience.

To succeed, online marketers need to have a thorough understanding of how and when to employ the various Web 2.0 channels available. For example, using RSS to propagate current promotions is a great way to draw more visitors. On the other hand, user reviews are more effective for closing the deal once the reader is on your site.

The real challenge lies in identifying the right means of contacting the target audience. If you are planning on adopting Web 2.0 marketing approaches, it is imperative to thoroughly research which, if any, Web 2.0 channels and methods your target audience is using.

Once you dig deeper and understand your customers better, it is easier to formulate an appropriate strategy. Monitoring relevant blogs where similar products are discussed can give you first hand insight into invaluable customer opinion information.

These statistics provide critical data for assessing whether or not your competition's marketing techniques have any direct influence on their sales.

Though monitoring the success of these web 2.0 techniques remains a challenge, you need to focus more on looking at the value of an individual visitor rather than the flawed metric of counting visits to a site.

Determining how your target audiences got to your site and how they interact with your site can help you target your marketing campaign more effectively than simply counting unique visitors.