Have you heard the phrase, "interweb"?  The "interweb" word is a humorous word referring to internet users who are ignorant to how the internet works.  It is used primary by the "old school" technos to make fun of the average Joe users.  Okay, I get the joke, it’s fun and all.  But let’s talk marketing!

If we refer to the newer users, the techno-challenged surfers, as "interweb" users and then refer to the tech-savvy users as "internet" users, then the rest of this article will make more sense.

Interweb users have finally discovered the internet and they are poking around in Google just fine.  They are learning to search, shop, and have fun online.  They are probably using youtube.com, facebook.com, and a few other common easy to use websites.  I’m sure they have all seen myspace.com pages, but none of them have setup their own page.

Marketing to the interweb is actually a bit different than marketing to internet users.  Internet users will find your podcasts, know how to search for a blog, and will even subscribe to your RSS feed.  Internet users are less likely to read your newsletter unless it’s pretty good.

Interweb users are easily overwhelmed by tech-talk.  They like newsletters and even look forward to getting emails.  Interweb users do not know how to manage their spam filters, so be careful to test your emails using a "spam test" utility (offered by mailing list companies such as IContact (recommended) .

Think of this as the transition from techno-users to techno-challenged-users.  The interweb will win.   That’s okay.  Internet users will always exist and will do what they do.  I’m one of those people.  Interweb users are here to stay and there will be more of them coming online every day.  Brace yourself.  Rethink your internet marketing campaign and target the interweb users.  Do not assume they know stuff.

We love interweb users.  But we have to be sensitive that computers are just "not their thing".  If you say something like, "put info@abc.com in your whitelist", an interweb user will probably not know what you are talking about.  Review your emails, websites, auto-responders, etc.  Either find ways to eliminate technical instructions or prepare more indepth instructions targeting your interweb audience.