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The Power of Performance

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

A mutual friend turned me on to a video presentation by Frederick Townes, CTO of Mashable and founder of W3 Edge, given at Wordcamp in Denmark in May of this year. The message can be summed in one phrase: WordPress is nice, it’s easy, but if your livelihood depends on it, you better get to know how to configure it or your site’s performance will be average to poor.

This is 104 minutes long. Fred’s presentation is complete in 40 minutes, but the Q&A afterward is worth the watch. And the slides offer very, very valuable links to measurement sites, plugins, and code samples. Be sure to download those!

Fred has learned a lot in the 13 years I have known him, much of it driven by a desire to know how to optimize the Web experience. He is well worth following on Twitter and LinkedIn.

10.08.2010 Industry, Services 1 Comment

How Valuable is Design on the Web?

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

The answer to that question is, “Just as important as it is for toasters and MP3 players.” Design is the unspoken language of art. Without a sound it can attract or repel. And while most see it as highly subjective—and in fine art it most assuredly is—in “logic products” (hardware, tools, even software interfaces) successful design can approach universal appreciation. Think iPod. The first MP3 player I had was the most amazing bundle of frustrating confusion I have ever seen. I was only continuing to subject myself to the torture of remembering how to get the desired result because it was given to me by my kids. They were watching to see how much I was enjoying it. When it became obvious ‘enjoyment’ was not a word I could use to describe my daily interaction with this device they bought me an iPod. Within seconds I felt empowered. Instantly I was able to explore its capabilities and go back to them easily. The interface of the click wheel and simple menus gave me great joy. I never touched the other MP3 player again. Such is the power of great design.

I dug up an article I wrote in 2004 that I still find valid and I share it with you now:

Let’s examine how important Web Design is to the success of any Web-based marketing campaign. In a September 2003 report from Forrester Research titled  “The Best and Worst of Site Design, 2003″ the authors stated, “Most of the problems we found were self-inflicted wounds resulting from site managers who naively allow designers to: hide value, turn interfaces into dexterity tests, favor “white space” over information, and leave users hanging.” The traps are subtle, but good design is a triumph over more than the pitfalls. Good design is the result of a process of deep thought. And therein lies the biggest benefit of good design: visitors to the site who are thinkers know that the designer is a thinker. They know that the designer was not acting out of ego, but of thinking of the needs of others.

Sites that exhibit good design—those that anticipate the needs of their visitors, prospects and patrons—are directly rewarded with ROI: return on investment. Using scenarios and personas to truly step inside the visitor’s likely situation(s) give designers clear priorities in the numerous decisions around navigation, use of imagery, arrangement of content, linkages within the site, and required functionality. Without clear objectives and a firm grasp of the audience, misuse of the opportunity to communicate value to each and every visitor is the likely outcome. Using technology to dazzle does little to convey meaning, much less compel thinking customers to stay. For those who use the Web as art, technology prowess is fine. For those who are intent on conducting commerce and generating qualified leads, the name of the game is conscientious, concise, controlled experience of the features and benefits of the products or services the site owner offers.

There is more to achieving a site’s objectives than good design, but at the first view of a Web site is the visitor’s impression of the whole site formed. If it’s not positive, the rest of the site and its intent is fighting an uphill battle. Thinking becomes the most important step in any site design. Who are the visitors? What are they looking for? What is their situation, are they rushed? Are they knowledgeable? Are they looking for opinions or facts? Are they the kind of prospect the site owner is looking for? Knowing the answers to those and more questions will better inform a designer than any images, cool Flash techniques, or PHP application.

Let’s talk design success. What are your experiences in creating good design? How do you identify bad design?

20.07.2010 Industry, Marketing 1 Comment

Can Social Media Scale?

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

Interesting presentation by Jeremiah Owyang on his Web strategy blog discusses the concerns that many large corporations have: can we scale social media as the demand grows? As Jeremiah says, “the amount of discussion generated from customers is only going to increase while your internal social strategists and community managers may only marginally increase.”

Jeremiah suggests that corporations put in place a strategy that pursues, most likely in parallel, three crucial initiatives:

  • Using all the voices in your ecosystem (the Rings of Influence) not just being the only ones to talk.
  • Develop more customer-to-customer technologies that leverage your customers to do your marketing, sales, and support.
  • Invest in Social CRM systems, while immature now, they will eventually help companies respond in real time –and maybe even anticipate customer need.

I recommend reading Jeremiah’s slide deck where you will find many suggestions and examples of what companies are doing now. I was reminded of how many “old school” technologies contribute to the socialsphere, such as forums and knowledgebases. But the future of social CRM is a key variable in how well companies will cope and for a more complete analysis of that, I suggest Jeremiah’s report on 18 Use Cases of Social CRM. The strategy of how social CRM fits with your sales and marketing CRM strategy is going to take some time and discussion, bringing in a moderator such as Jeremiah and his company, Altimeter, is something to consider and budget for.

I can hear some of my network saying, “But I have 20 employees, we have hundreds of customers, we are already fighting a losing battle!” Two responses: 1) it’s not going to get any less important, and 2) Jeremiah’s recommendations still apply. The job description of “Community Manager” is not new for your company, it used to be called customer service. There is a change in scale, however. Where your customer service rep may have only responded to random phone calls and emailed inquiries, the social network landscape opens up many opportunities to be proactive, and to hear when you customer is talking about you, rather than to you. As the leader of a company of any size the truth is that understanding and using social media at virtually all levels in your company is crucial for your success. As Chris Brogan talks about in his post on Scaling Social Media, social media is “… part of the relationship-building, … and can’t be skimped on.”

What is your view of the growth of social media relative to your company’s growth? Are you losing the race? What are you doing to increase the multiplier of social media involvement and effectiveness per employee?

13.06.2010 Industry 4 Comments

What is “The Siteless Web” and how do you use it?

Thursday, February 25th, 2010
The exploding demand to monitor your presence on the Web

The exploding demand to monitor your presence on the Web

Steve Rubel writes in this post that the AP and other news (and other content) syndicators have found in Facebook a way to build identity for a service that has always been secondary to the publisher. I see a slightly different twist on AP’s investment in Facebook. For many the light is dawning: there is a gradual movement toward a Web presence that is not based on “one site,” but rather distributed content across many aggregators – sites that cater to specific audiences. Let the other sites do what it takes to create communities, then offer your goods and services there. As long as the platform supports all a customer needs to know or do, why do you need a site of your own? Search will instead direct prospects to your content, even to the perfect community to access that product or service if their search string is very specific. In a post on this topic by Paul Gillen, @pgillen, he says as much. “A person’s or brand’s online presence will increasingly be syndicated through a network of feeds that may find their home almost anywhere.” I commented that:

I am absolutely seeing the lack of importance in any one site if it’s pure “thought content” we are talking about. Seems obvious that The Siteless Web would not apply when it’s commerce or private/secure interaction (such as managing client account data) we are talking about, right? Small quantities of any product could be sold in a variety of sites, I suppose, but for any catalog of product, or an array of services for that matter, the “company site” will still be necessary, will it not? And will it not be search still that leads us to the hooks people and brands place in the many pools when we don’t know who to ask for a referral, or we want to compare options or offerings? On the one hand, this supports the rampant, even indiscriminate, distribution of “thought leadership” content across the Web. (Investment tip: server and storage companies will never see a declining market demand. Ever.) On the other, it raises the staffing demand in order to:

  • Keep ahead of the list of new sites that attract appropriate audiences, and
  • Tailor the content to each community so as to be perceived as sensitive to the interests and needs of each audience, and
  • Monitor comments and feedback through each placement in all sites.

And what of metrics and measurement? Is it overly simplistic to see the industry reverting to the classic, monotheistic measurement of success: sales? Why would you rely on traffic tracking to continue publishing to a site if it only takes one reader to call and order to justify the time and talent invested in the posting to the site where they saw your post? The folks at Gomez and Hubspot aren’t going to like hearing that, but I wonder if the siteless Web frees marketers from having to be left-brained technologists and returns them to the creative side? Not that such a scenario is all roses for the aforementioned never-ending list of new social networks, bookmarking, photo, video, opinion sites and blogs. That volume is actually terrifying to visualize.

What this means to companies is a choice—should they staff this need themselves or turn to outside resources to create, monitor, even to engage in dialog with their audiences on the many platforms and in the many threads of conversation where they add relevance and have an opportunity to build trust?

SRD InterActive stands ready to assist no matter how that issue is decided. From the strategy development, to the resource identification, to the full production and ongoing support. Call or email to start that discussion.

25.02.2010 Industry, Marketing 2 Comments

Twitter: Blinded by the Obvious

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

The Internet itself had the same reaction: “this too shall pass” everyone said. But the Internet remains, and continues to grow in importance, as strange as that seems, every single day. Now Twitter is getting ‘the treatment’, people in marketing, sales and virtually every walk of life are telling anyone who will listen that Twitter is a waste of time. They know this to be true.

I commented on a MediaPost research report on the demographic survey that the Pew Internet & American Life Project recently released, largely because people who should have known better took the opportunity to discount any value in Twitter. Their use of words such as “hype,” “worthless” and “bias” called me into action. Here is my take on Twitter, or at least the slice of it that I posted as a comment:

I find that comments about how Twitter is used by the masses ignores how Twitter is used by the professionals. Social Media is a faster, and some might argue more powerful, SEO tool than traditional SEO. The technology of Twitter is what is important, not the content found in any random sampling of the Twitter stream. Links are indexed by search engines almost immediately and they last forever and they get very fast response. Good content attracts large traffic numbers if posted to Twitter by a dependable source who has built a significant following.

Don’t be fooled by looking only at the surface. Twitter search, now lists, and some of the associated tools such as foursquare are changing the way money is made on the Web, customers are served, dialogs with prospects are initiated, and audiences are assembled. Twitter has powerful Google juice and it is up to the wise to tap into it.

I had a similar response to a friend, Mike Schneider, when he was curious about how few college juniors were using Twitter:

I just taught a similar class last week at the NE School of Photography. Similar results of the poll. Different reason why, though. These are photographers trying to get work in a world where there are more cameras than there are people. I tell people Twitter is pure Google Juice. Say it on Twitter with a good number of followers and read about it on Google within hours. Talk about your blog post or someone else’s on Twitter and watch the visitor stats go through the roof. I tell them that it is one of the few nets that will be tossed into more pools than they can find on their own, meaning that what they say can, and most likely will be if it’s crafted correctly, spread out to others’ lists of followers without any effort on their part. Some day the shelf life of Twitter content will probably be measured in centuries.

Social media is about leveraging technology to get found. I’ve taught that class to groups of older sole practitioners, college students, ad agencies, and professionals sharpening their self-promotion skills and darn close to 100% of them do not see it for that.

Twitter is SEO for everyman. As with all change, you have a choice as to how long you want to stay where you are and deny yourself the advantage of that change. I put it off for a while, but I am grateful to Aaron Strout for waking me up to the power of social media in general, and Twitter in specific .

If you want to start driving traffic to your efforts, get into Twitter and start reading the many tutorials on how to leverage it. If you need help, contact me.

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08.11.2009 Industry, Marketing 2 Comments

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