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What’s All This Web Presence Stuff, Anyhow? »


| by David Pinto on September 1st, 2009 | No Comments »

Got Corporate Presence + Internet Presence + Social Media Presence?

During engineering school, I landed a short stint as an electronics design intern at Xerox Corp. In 1990, before the Internet ramped up to make things like search easier, we relied on good old filing systems to locate datasheets, manuals, parts, specifications…anything that would help us repair aging or recalcitrant office automation equipment. Life was great and the challenges were fun, except for a couple of managers who didn’t like this young whippersnapper’s “filing” system. Only problem was that the team I worked with could always find anything we needed within seconds…until someone came along and filed away our organized “mess”. Result: Frantic searches and unnecessary service delays.

Enter Robert A. Pease (RAP), Engineer, National Semiconductor. I happened to pick up an issue of Electronic Design magazine lying around the office. Ever since I read that first, and now-classic, Pease Porridge column, “What’s All This Neatness Stuff, Anyhow?”  I realized I was not alone in my filing/search methods. Needless to say, it was great to find a kindred spirit. I quickly learned to ignore any interference and perfected a classic filing method (with excellent turnaround time results). I also became an avid consumer of Pease Porridge over the next decade.

With due apologies to RAP, allow to me to take a crack at “What’s All This Web Presence Stuff, Anyhow?” Here’s one definition (you may want to avoid going to the link, where you’d be obliged to skip the ad): A Web Presence (or Web Site) is a collection of Web files on a particular subject that includes a beginning file called a home page. etc. etc. Amazingly enough, I came across several instances with similar disinformation.

Today’s young whippersnappers might remark, “OMG, that’s waaaay off the mark!” Right. To use the terms “Web Presence” and “Web Site” interchangeably is blatantly inaccurate.

So, what is Web Presence (WP), and why all the fuss? Here’s one formula we propose:

WP = Corporate Presence + Internet Presence + Social Media Presence

Platform/Channel(s)
 Characteristics Players/Influencers
Corporate Presence (Your Website/Intranet) Fully Controlled, Stylized, Branded   Staff/Executives/Marketing Teams Own the Voice
Internet Presence (Traditional Portals/Media Coverage) Minimal Control, Objective, Authoritative Experts/Editors/Analysts Have the Voice
Social Media Presence (New &  Emerging Channels) Clearly Uncontrolled, Community, Participatory Customers/Audience/Prospects Deliver the Voice

 

The trouble is, you can imagine social media flavors  will inevitably and increasingly make their presence felt all the way  back into traditional and corporate channels too.

And that’s the reason for the fuss. It makes embracing a good web presence management strategy, especially an open dialog with customers, imperative for business success. More about that in upcoming posts, along with quick tips for enhancing your web presence.

Meanwhile, feel free to weigh in with your definition(s), filing methods or SoMe insights – we’re open for debate!

PS: Back to RAP, here are links to some of his classics:

- What’s All This Neatness Stuff, Anyhow? (Electronic Design magazine, Oct 1990, includes photo of his “filing” system)
- And, if you need more, here’s the best of Pease Porridge.

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Posted in Audience Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Web Presence Management



So how much are unpopped kernels costing your business? »


| by Shyam Subramanyan on February 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

According to the Onion unpopped kernels cost U.S. Billions ever year.  I myself don’t let the unpopped kernels go waste.  I chew them into submission when I am too lazy to stick another bag, right side up, in the microwave. Yes, I know.

This got me thinking.  How much are unpopped kernels costing me in my business?  They are those anonymous visitors that come to my website.  They come back multiple times, clearly looking for something, and sometimes get tantalizingly close to telling me who they are.

Many businesses don’t think too much about unpopped kernels.  They assume that at some point the anonymous will reveal themselves.  This approach has the risk of losing the prospect completely. There should be consistent efforts to:

  • Understand what percentage they are – 15%, 35%, 60%?
  • How long does it take to convert someone from anonymous to known?
  • Be active in conversion.  What are they looking for? Can their content consumption history tell us more about what can be offered to them to help reveal their identity?

Getting back to popcorn, here’s the real story behind unpopped kernels and what scientists are doing to make them all pop.  While I don’t like unpopped kernels on my website, I actually enjoy some in my popcorn.

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Posted in Audience Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Web Presence Management



When SEM can be injurious to your health »


| by Shyam Subramanyan on February 10th, 2009 | No Comments »

SEM seems to be that magic pill that’s exactly what the doctor ordered.  The thinking goes like this.  Google seems to be making fistful of dollars on it, so it should be working for businesses that use them.  The competition uses SEM and “we can’t be left behind”.  If people click and come to our site, “we have a qualified prospect”.  It only cost me “pennies”.

SEM in a bottle

SEM Warning!

Like the warning on the medicine label, SEM can have be downright injurious to your health if taken on an empty stomach.  What do I mean by that?  Before you spend money on SEM, put yourself in the shoes of your prospect.  Your prospect is not going to get “sold” by just visiting your website, however impressive it may be.  She is going to look at validation from the external web – your web presence that is beyond your own website.

In order to experience your web presence yourself, do a quick search on your own business and see what comes up.  Hopefully the first hit is your own website (If not, you have some serious SEO work to do).  If the next few entries are:

a) Your own aborted entry in Wikipedia marked as “maybe an advertisement”, or

b) A press release from 2003 announcing a version 1.01 of your product, or

c) A link to a LinkedIn company page that does not show a strong team, or

d) An industry article or blog entry that mentions your product with negative comments (or even worse with no comments), or

e) A discussion forum showing disgruntled customers, or

f) all of the above,

you might be ingesting SEM on an empty stomach.  Your prospect, now aware of you, thanks to SEM, is now put off by what she finds (or doesn’t) about you.  She’s a blip in the radar, never to be found again.  Your pennies spent on SEM now cost you a bundle by chasing a perfectly good prospect away – maybe for good.

So before you take the SEM pill, make sure your are not doing it on an empty stomach.

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Posted in Audience Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Web Presence Management



Why the Yogi gets Web Presence Management? »


| by Bala Gopalan on January 31st, 2009 | No Comments »

I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering that question.

The last several years have seen an explosion in the space of point marketing solutions. A space that will define your web presence and include among others solutions for web content management, sites and landing pages management, online communities, webcasts, podcasts, support forums, idea forums, blogs, wikis, polls and surveys, e-mail marketing management, website analytics, lead nurturing, customer relationship management, and search marketing management. There is a plethora of vendor solutions available in each one of these categories.

Oh, Great! So it is a marketer’s perfect world then?

If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.

Well, not exactly! What not exactly? Does this sound all too familar? You send out e-mails using vendor A to the list from your desktop Excelsheet that leads to registrations on vendor B for webcasts to be delivered by vendor C and to be archived by vendor D to be posted on the community platform of vendor E activity on which you would like to be progressively sent to your CRM system on vendor F. Somewhere in this mix is your own .com site, with or without a login, and analytics from vendor G. And, that all important copy change that you wanted to make on your site is request #42 for your webmaster/IT, who is working on scripts for your data to flow from vendor A to vendor C (or was it vendor F) so that you can have a more qualified lead for your Sales team. Working across these vendors and your own IT you pray that one more window of opportunity does not close on you ..

Now, you have’nt had enough and want to reach out to your audience with a new podcast or an eBook. What do you do? OK, you send out e-mails using vendor A to the list from your desktop Excelsheet that leads to registrations on vendor B for podcasts to be delivered by vendor C … wait a second!

It’s like deja-vu, all over again.

and, more. Audience Joe has as many profiles and metrics as there are vendors and campaigns. Lucky you, get to consolidate them the fun way on that spreadsheet again or the not so fun way by opening an IT project and wait until .. wait, ..

It gets late early out there.

So you wish there was that one single interface – your own pilot’s dashboard – from where you can control all the aspects of your marketing plane with the best-in-class components for the different functionality and importantly, fly the plane yourself too. Despair not. We are with you there ..

You can observe a lot by just watching.

And, so we did (by watching and participating). Embark on this mission to provide complete web presence management across multiple channels without the multiple vendor overhead, progressive and consolidated 360° optics into target audiences, and tighter integration with sales. Our first product release is cooking in the clouds (force.com platform) for a Jan’09 release. But wait ..

It ain’t over till it’s over.

We have larger and grander plans to make your life easier. We’ll simplify the process on how you can manage your brand’s presence not just on your corporate .com sites but also on the increasing list of social sites where they talk about you, with or without you. So wouldn’t it be great to let us support you in joining these conversations for ..

The future ain’t what it used to be.

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Posted in Enterprise, Marketing, Mid-market, Small Business, Strategy, Web Presence Management



From barackobama.com to whitehouse.gov »


| by Shyam Subramanyan on January 21st, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I was registered on Obama’s site for more than a year leading up to the elections.  I was impressed with how his campaign managed his web presence across various channels.  I was also registered at johnmccain.com and hillaryclinton.com so I could follow all the lead characters in the race closely.

Thinking back, as an audience, there were two things that Obama’s campaign did much better than the other campaigns.   First, the consistency in which they kept in touch with their audience.  As audience, there’s something comforting about knowing how often and familiarity with the tone of communication you receive from an organization.  The consistency creates a rhythm for the organization, but more importantly it creates a rhythm for the audience as well.  There were no periods of lull or sudden frenzy that was apparent in the other campaigns.  Second, the complete orchestration of the content of the email campaigns, website, and content distributed through social media outlets.   If you click through or visit the website following an email communication, the media elements on barackobama.com kept you focused on that specific message.  With other campaigns, it was very clear that different arms of the campaign were working different channels and I was left with more questions than answers with the two minutes I was ready to spend with them.

Now there’s a new whitehouse.gov website that promises to extend what I experienced with barackobama.com. You can sign up here like I did.

Will the ingenuity of barackobama.com translate to whitehouse.gov?  Will change really come to Washington? Based on what I saw on barackobama.com, there’s much to be hopeful!

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Posted in Audience Marketing, Campaigns, Current Events, Politics, Strategy, Web Presence Management

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