Nov 1011
I was researching an organization last week and visited their website, blog and social media pages. The website was nicely designed, easy to navigate, and had good information. The blog was terrific and I quickly subscribed to the RSS feed. When I got to the organization’s social media pages, I was sorely disappointed. Their Twitter and Facebook pages had nothing but headlines from the blog. Clearly, all they did was take the blog RSS feed and use it to populate their social media pages.
So did I decide to “follow” the organization on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook? Absolutely not. Since I had already subscribed to the blog RSS feed, I didn’t feel compelled to follow them on Twitter and Facebook. Why add clutter to my social media streams with information I can already get elsewhere?
I know it’s tempting to set-up pages on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms and populate them with posts from your blog or press room. We’re all busy and most communications and marketing departments are stretched thin. But posting the same information across platforms isn’t doing your organization any good. Why?
- By posting headlines that meet the least common denominator across platforms (probably Twitter, with its 140 character limit), you miss out on functionality offered by the other platforms. For example, Facebook lets you post longer updates, upload photos and videos, include links, host discussions, etc.
- You don’t give your target audiences a reason to follow or fan you across platforms. Just imagine this. If you post complementary but different content across platforms, your clients, prospects and supporters might just follow you on multiple platforms, giving your company an incredible voice with those individuals.
- If you’re posting headlines from your news room, you’re not offering people the authentic, personal voice we’ve come to expect on the social media pages.
Here’s what we do at Matrix Group:
- Our website showcases our products, services, clients, portfolio, news and webinars.
- This blog, which is authored by me, Joanna, the CEO, features my thoughts and commentary on social media, marketing, communications, strategy, customer service, trends and gadgets. This blog DOES feature website launches at the bottom of each page.
- Our Twitter page showcases our work and clients, but the majority of the tweets are about industry news, trends, how-to articles, and case studies. Twitter will tell you who we are and what we’re reading. We’re pretty chatty on Twitter; we post updates multiple times a day.
- Our Facebook page also showcases our work and clients, but we also post photos and updates about happenings in the company, including trainings, parties, fun events, etc. Facebook will tell you a lot about who we are as a company and our culture. For example, our staff pumpkin carving contest was featured on our Facebook page. We’re less chatty on Facebook, just updating a few times a week.
- Our Flickr page is home to our photo library of company events, while our Facebook page has the “best of” photos.
- Our YouTube channel is a work in progress and will soon feature short interviews with senior staff about their areas of expertise, including branding, the user experience, software development and security.
As you can see, our various pages are all designed to showcase our expertise, clients and work but the user experience on each platform has been carefully crafted to take advantage of that platform’s capabilities. And while the website is clearly a marketing channel for the company, we’re not very sales-y on our social media pages, focusing instead on posting useful and interesting links.
How about you? How are you creating an integrated use experience across your company’s social media pages? What’s working for you?
Aug 1026
Every week, I check out the usage reports for the Matrix Group Web site and blog. I also look closely at the analytics reports from Facebook for our Facebook fan page. In the last year, traffic on this blog has overtaken the traffic on the public Web site. And as we increase the number of fans on our Facebook page, our interactions have grown steadily as well.
A recent article in Ad Age explores how some of the top consumer brands have Facebook pages with a fan base and interactions that far outstrip that of their official Web sites. Starbucks has 12.9M fans; Coke has nearly 11M fans; Oreo has 8.9M fans. Of the companies in the article, only Starbucks has steadily increasing Web traffic.
All of this got me thinking: What happens when an organization’s blog, Facebook, Twitter or other social media page gets more traffic than the official Web site? Is this the ultimate goal for marketers? Is traffic on a social media site worth as much as traffic on a company Web site? Does this increased traffic ultimately lead to more customers and sales?
I have clients who worry about redirecting traffic to social media pages, for fear of losing control over the conversations, not owning the Web property, or that the interactions are not quite official enough. Others hold their social media stats in the highest regard. Most of us wonder what it really means when somebody chooses to “like” our fan pages.
How to make sense of all this? Here are some thoughts:
Jul 1028
This week, I’m doing part two of a blog post I started last week on Blogging Best Practices. This post is inspired by a webinar that I conducted with my friend, blogger and activist Shaun Dakin, Director of Business Development at Infield Communications. Here are additional take-aways from the webinar.
- How Long Should Your Posts Be? We suggest that each post be no more than 4-6 paragraphs. If your posts are too long, your followers may decide to read them at a later time and not come back. But you want enough length to be able to cover a topic with enough substance.
- Create Visual Interest. Although followers follow blogs for their content, we believe that your posts will have more impact if they have photos, videos, event basic html formatting. If nothing else, use formatting to make your content skimmable.
- Align Posts With Your Keyword/SEO Strategy. While I’m a firm believer that you can’t force keywords into headlines, do try to make your titles and opening paragraphs keyword rich.
- Create Compelling Introductions. Think about it. You make a decision about whether or not to open an e-mail or click on an article in your RSS reader based on the title and opening paragraph. So make your blog post introductions compelling to encourage clicks.
Read the rest of this entry
Jul 1021
A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of conducting a webinar on Blogging Best Practices with my friend, blogger and activist Shaun Dakin, Director of Business Development at Infield Communications. Shaun and I are passionate bloggers and we each had a lot to say about what we think it takes to be a good blogger and have a successful and well-read blog! Here are some of the take-aways from the webinar:
- What Are Your Goals? The most important thing is to align your blog’s goals with your organization’s goals. Are you trying to engage your target audiences? Influence? Foster specific actions? Your goals should be measurable so that, at the end of the day, you know if your blog is a success.
- Who Should Blog? Shaun and I believe that anyone can blog, but for most organizations, you need people who have a 20,000 foot view of the industry or issues, enjoys writing (or is paired with someone who enjoys writing and is a good writer to boot), and is committed to pumping out content on a regular basis.
- What Should You Blog About? This is the $64,000 question! Ultimately, you need a mission statement for your blog that guides your content strategy. We grouped blog posts into the categories. In practice, most blogs employ a variety of blog post types to keep readers engaged.
- Hot items/News – These posts tend to cover what’s new in the industry, breaking news, etc.
- Strategy/Commentary – These posts try to provide a perspective on specific issues and usually aim to persuade readers to take a certain point of view.
- Trends - These posts report on market trends, trending topics, research and statistics.
- How-To Guides – These posts are often a combination of text and video and aim to provide users with a practical guide to doing something specific.
Read the rest of this entry
Dec 0904
Matrix Group worked with Accession Point to design and launch a blog for CEO Jill Stelfox. As a recognized consultant, Stelfox wanted a platform to share her blunt insight on how to help companies and CEO’s take their businesses to the next level.
Matrix Group work includes the following:
- Designed a blog that reflected Accession Point’s identity, as well as captured Stelfox’s personality
- Incorporated a content management system (CMS) to allow Stelfox to update her content on a frequent basis
- Assisted on content development, ensuring posts were effective and worked well on the Web
- Added a “share” function, allowing visitors to share Stelfox’s blog posts through social networking/bookmarking sites
Visit the Accession Point Blog
Oct 0901
Matrix Group collaborated with author and certified financial planner Kelly Campbell to launch a redesigned Web site for Fire Your Broker. The redesign features Kelly’s book Fire Your Broker, a practical guide to help individuals take over their financial futures and find the right broker.
Our work included:
- A new blog where Campbell addresses financial issues, and offers insightful tips on how to prepare for retirement and sustain financial security beyond one’s working years.
- The incorporation of other social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter to help establish a fan and follower base.
- The implementation of Expression Engine as the CMS.
- A fresh look and feel that serves that highlights Campbell’s expertise and perspectives on the nation’s brokerage industry.
Visit Fire Your Broker
Sep 0929
I had the pleasure of being part of a panel at today’s Grow Smart Biz conference, sponsored by Network Solutions. Our topic was “Integrating Traditional Marketing with Social Media.” Despite being the last panel of the day (we started around 4:20pm), I estimated that over 80% of the conference attendees attended the panel. And by the number of questions raised, this is a hot topic for sure.
You can read a nice recap of the panel on the Solutions are Power blog, but here were my take-aways: Read the rest of this entry
Aug 0925
From homemade movies on YouTube, to movie and book reviews, comments on blogs, and entries in Wikipedia, user-generated content (UGC) has changed the Web forever. I can’t imagine the Amazon shopping experience without comments and ratings from other moms, the posts from the 500 or so people I follow on Twitter could keep me occupied and interested all day, and I thank God every day for the thousands of homemade Thomas the Tank Engine movies on YouTube that keep my five-year old enthralled on a rainy day. Mashable reported that more than 82 million people in the US created content online in 2008.
So how come most organizations shy away from incorporating UGC on their sites? Read the rest of this entry
May 0923
I’m headed out for a short vacation today. Before I left the office, several co-workers asked me if I will be tweeting while I’m out. I had to pause for a second before responding with a “no, yes, maybe.” Hmmm….. Just what are the expectations these days about being on vacation and tweeting or maintaining your status on the various social networks?
When I’m on vacation, I like to really unplug, which is why my husband and I go to places like Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Prague, Costa Rica. We go to places where we’re not tempted to go online and work because there is so much to see and do; often, the time difference makes it difficult to stay in touch. Read the rest of this entry
Mar 0926
Candidate Obama ran a great campaign and made amazing use of social networking services to get the word out about his campaign, mobilize supporters, create viral messages, and raise money. When the campaign ended, I wondered if President Obama would continue to use social networking tools or if the constraints of the White House or security would put an end all that open communication and engagement.
I’ve been so happy to see that President Obama is being just as innovative and engaging online.
