Social marketers increasingly need to be web-savvy in order to take advantage of online opportunities to promote their issues. Part of my hope in writing this blog is to help people working in social marketing to utilize the Web 2.0 tools that harness the power of social networks to spur individual and social change - ideas like user-generated content, peer networking, and the development of online communities.

I have just learned of a project called NetSquared (tagline: "remixing the web for social change"), which works to provide nonprofits with the know-how to adopt new online technologies. It's a great website to use to learn more about how the web can augment your social marketing programs or nonprofit outreach efforts.

Daniel Ben-Horin, president of CompuMentor, which created NetSquared, describes its mission:

We will catalyze the catalyzers. We will use the new tools and culture shift to engender conversations among the early adopters (who often don't know of each other), between early and later adopters, between nonprofits and technology developers, between nonprofits and the growing army of technology helpers, and between all of the foregoing and the major technology companies (who have so much to gain from this dialogue in terms of marketing and realizing technology's social potential).

If you are reading this blog, it's likely that you are already pretty conversant with using the web. Many in the social marketing field, though, still think of the internet as only websites and e-mail. We need to move toward Social Marketing 2.0 so we can utilize the widest possible set of tools available to us. I will be putting together a workshop to teach social marketers how to use the latest technologies in their programs, so please let me know if you have any interest in this issue.

Also, NetSquared will be having a conference in May that will bring together nonprofits, technology people, philanthropists and others involved in the confluence between these groups.