I've spent a lot of my career helping organizations improve their web presence and when
social media first came a long I thought I would get to move on and leave web sites behind. And yet my first recommendation on virtually every new project goes something like this - Step #1: upgrade your web site! I've even developed a checklist to guide our assessment of their current site (see below).
The first few times this happened it made me uncomfortable; was I just falling back into my comfort zone? But then I began to understand the rationale behind my own recommendation at a deeper level, and it is this:
So for companies and non-profits seeking to begin engaging their audiences in the socialsphere, their web site will do one of two things; it will reinforce the credibility of their brand representatives in the social dialog or it will undermine these individuals by casting doubt upon the representative's motives or veracity. Here are some checklist items you can use to evaluate your web site for its identity correlation and authenticity value.
- Value: Is it clear what value you offer to whom? If you sell Ice to Eskimos would an Eskimo know to pay attention? Would a polar bear know to move on? (Seriously, take the link and read their first paragraph. Any questions what services they provide and to whom?)
- Core: Are your Vision, Mission and Values crystal clear, true to your culture and meaningful? Now that visitors know what you can do for them, they want to know who you really are. These statements can be valuable for individuals to articulate but they are critical organizational statements of identity and authenticity. In truth, creating them collaboratively within the organization can bring them into being so they become a living part of your identity that finds its way into the "voice" of your employees as they interact with customers and stakeholders. Don't know how to go about creating good ones? Contact me.
- Proof Points: Show and tell. Don't make claims without substantiating them. If you say your product has undergone substantial testing, explain the methodology, findings or both. If you claim customer satisfaction, provide reference quotes or survey data. Be a credible communicator through your web site so that your personal spokespeople start from a base of organizational veracity. By the way, Google rewards deep content so your investment in creating this content will pay off in your search rankings if you do it well. (Just don’t forget to optimize all those pages!)
- Financial Transparency: Is it clear how you're funded and where your interests lie? In the case of commercial companies this is fairly easy ("My agenda? Buy my stuff.") but if you're not a public company, do what you can to make it clear who's interests are being served when people buy your stuff. In the case of nonprofits list your funders and funding sources. Best to be straightforward and publish your response to the whatever criticism you might encounter about your funding sources . If you're going to hide something, hide it in plain sight.
- Identity Transparency: Give your senior management team and spokespeople faces and names. Walk around your office and take pictures of the people who interface with your audience. Put them on the site with their names and titles. Be especially good about keeping this information current and pay special attention to ensuring that the brand representatives are always listed. Their presence on your site validates their claim that they are actually representing you. People still like people and putting human faces on your organization is a simple and easy way to communicate a powerful part of your identity.
- Fresh: Make your announcements current and compelling. Currency is the new currency. Google rewards frequently updated content and so do humans. Unless it's evergreen, the speed of society dictates that fresh information will be granted more credibility than old data. If your last press release was 2007, get a new one up or consider getting rid of them all. Also, consider a model change; instead of announcements and press releases - which carry a certain gravity to them that can be difficult to manufacture on a frequent basis, consider a company blog which highlights the big stuff (major announcements) and the little stuff (employee perspectives and good customer experiences.) Make sure it’s written by brand representatives instead of the marketer with the bag over their head.
That's the basic list of "must haves" to pass the critics' initial authenticity check, but while you're fine-tuning your online identity, why not make a little extra effort to capture the satisfied critic and provide them the opportunity to become an advocate. Here are some simple things you can do to your site to encourage the motivated site visitor to give you a word of mouth boost.
- Share It: Put a little “Add this” or “Share This” tag on your content to make someone’s job easier if they want to refer your information to their colleagues or friends on a social network.
- RSS updates: Almost 30% of web users use RSS readers to keep track of web content they care about. Give these people an easy way to stay abreast of your updates.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Ad clickthroughs are down on social networks because we can now entertain ourselves really well on the web without having to resort to clicking on the bouncing ball or answering the fake poll question. But people still need information and when they do, they go to Google. When people Google for you, will you be the one to pop up? If you do SEO well, it can be much cheaper than advertising.
- Multimedia: Producing decent looking video and audio messages is now inexpensive and easy. If your content lends itself to such formats, use them and experiment with them. They make your site more interesting and if you host them on YouTube, iTunes and other multimedia watering holes, you create the potential for more audiences to find you in their own back yard without you having to spend the money to drive them directly to your site through advertising.
Despite all the new, fun social stuff there is to do in online marketing we have to remember that some kind of “who are we?” web site will always be important. Luckily, the technology continues to change and morph, making even the old fashioned web site pretty interesting these days.
