By now, we probably don't need to discuss the importance of creating original, relevant content for your website. As author David Meerman Scott is fond of saying, "Nobody cares about your product but you." So writing carefully conceived marketing copy with a list of all your impressive features isn't really going to help get your message out anymore. In fact, it might have the opposite effect.

Today you have to be focused on original, compelling content, and you have to be agile, ready to pounce in real time to the changing marketing landscape forming around you.

Back in the 90s, in the age of Web 1.0, we hired professionals to design our websites and we hired copywriters to carefully craft the copy. What you had was essentially an online brochure, which users read, but didn't interact with very much. But that all changed with advent of Web 2.0 tools.

Suddenly, anyone could create websites. People got social and they talked to each other in public on social networks. Customers became part of the conversation and by now it's impossible to ignore this trend.

Today it's absolutely essential to create your own content. You might hire a journalist to write for your company blog, or a video production company to help your customers make better use of your products and services. Or even better, your customers might be creating their own how-to videos and posting them on your site.

Customers are no longer innocent bystanders absorbing your words. They are full-blown participants with opinions and the ability to generate content and you absolutely should be encouraging them to do just that. The more your customers are involved with your site, the more engaged they are with your products. The more passion they have, the better for you.

But that passion has a flip side, as well. If you do something your customers don't like, chances are you're going to get an earful about it. And responding in real time to these situations is the subject of Scott's latest book, Real Time Marketing and PR.

He encourages companies to get involved on social networks, but again, not from a pure marketing perspective--at least not how we have thought about marketing in the traditional sense. Instead, companies can use social networks to engage directly with customers and get to know them (and let them know you, as people behind an organization). When you create this personal connection, customers might be more likely to forgive you when something goes wrong.

It's always been about being authentic and transparent online. That may sound cliche at this point, but it's absolutely critical to follow this advice because if you try the old selling techniques on Twitter, Facebook or Google+, you'll just be perceived as a spammer and ignored.

The idea instead is to generate useful content that applies not only to your company's products and services, but contributes at a higher level above pure marketing hype. This ends up attracting people to your products and services by natural extension, because your organization is seen as open, honest and as a thought leader in your field.

The bottom line is that content strategy has changed in a big way, and if you're not there yet, you're missing a golden opportunity to interact directly with your customers via a sensible, modern content strategy that throws away many traditional marketing ideas in favor of engagement. - Ron