A Solid Web Presence STEP BY STEP!

Posted on May 23, 2013 by SilverCap

Solid Web Presence

“STEP 1: We can have lots of fun!

STEP 2: There’s so much we can do!

STEP 3: It’s just you and me!

STEP 4: I can give you more!

STEP 5: Don’t you know that the time is right!

HOOWOAH!!”   - New Kids on the Block

Did I really just quote NKOTB in a blog post to do with creating a solid web presence andcrowd content marketing? Wow, that just happened.  I guess it is fitting. The New Kids did an amazing job of knowing their buyer personas and then delivering what they wanted. They generated significant amount revenue off 10-18 year old screaming girls with catchy, sappy songs. They were effective and as it turns out they were also onto something with their song Step by Step.

STEP 1: We Can Have Lots of Fun with Our Web Design

When designing your website the number one rule is keep it simple, don’t over complicate the design. The design needs to reflect your company culture. This is where you make your first impression! Use colors that work together and are pleasing to the eye. The last thing we want to do is offend viewers with a rainbow of colors! Unless you are selling headache medication I wouldn’t recommend loud, bright and contrasting. The design and color scheme are the frame to the content. Your content deserves to be treated with respect as do the visitors to your web site. There is an exception to this rule and that would be with your CTAs (Call to Action). The visitors’ eye should be drawn to the CTA on the page. Remember, drawn not offended by! A good rule of thumb is to make your CTA in a color that is found nowhere else on the page, again without being offensive. The eye should be drawn to the CTA in a, “Oh, what’s this?” manner. The point here overall is to have fun with the design process whether that means you are having fun doing it in house or having fun working with a professional web design team. It’s your online presence! Have fun with it, make it yours and make sure it appeals to the masses.

STEP 2: There’s So Much We Can Do

Once your website is built the possibilities are wide and varied. Consider your product and/or service and then you can properly select the add-ons for your site. You may need an online store to sell a line of products, or a blog to educate the public about your industry. You may consider one or more types of social media to help bring traffic to your site – CTAs, Landing Pages, videos, and/or webinars. There are so many ways you can make your website unique. It can be overwhelming!  When considering the possibilities it is important to consider a few things.

    1. Which add-ons will best suit my business?
    2. How much time can I invest into my site?
    3. How much money can I invest?
    4. Can I hire someone to run my blog and social media?
    5. Which social media am I comfortable with?

These are all important questions. Pick the add-ons that best suit the needs of your business. If you don’t have a line of products to sell then you don’t need an online store.

What you invest into your site whether it is time, money or both will play a major role I how effective your web site is. If you don’t have the time to invest into research, writing good content, and going over analytics to see where you can improve then I would suggest that you make sure you have a budget to hire professionals to crate your solid web presence.

If you’re doing things yourself then select the social media you know and do it well! If you’re a tweeter then stick to twitter and do what you know. It’s better to do fewer things really well then do everything mediocre.

STEP 3: It’s Just You and Me

It is highly recommended that you have a blog on your website and that you post regularly and consistently. Writing posts of quality content regularly will, over time, establish a loyal audience. Another benefit to a blog is that every time you post you create more pages on your website which is good for the coveted organic page rank. More importantly a blog is a great way to nurture a relationship with your visitors. Establish buyer personas and then write your blog posts for them. Write as if you are having a conversation with them one on one. This is your opportunity to develop relationships and build trust with your readers.

A good quality blog will please both people and search engines.

STEP 4: I Can Give You More

It’s important to give more to visitors. This again, builds relationships and trust. Examples of what you can give to those that click on your CTAs is eBooks, webinars, white pages, samples and any number of other tools and services that you offer. By giving you will gain leads through landing pages and most importantly build trust. Why is trust important? Trust is important because when the consumer gets to the stage in the sales cycle where they are ready to make a buying decision, who are they most likely to make their purchase with? Most will go with the business they trust. It is my opinion that building trust is the most important element in the sales cycle. It does not come quickly or easily so take the time and have the patience to earn the trust of your visitors. Use your knowledge, personality and tools to earn trust over time and then reap the rewards.

STEP 5: Don’t you know that the Time is Right

Are you timid about getting online or about changing your current web presence?

Don’t be!

There is no single greater tool in marketing your business than a well thought out, solid web presence. If you have the budget, then hire professionals to work with and attack your online marketing strategy full strength. If that budget is not there at the moment then all hope is not lost. The beautiful thing about building or reinventing your online appearance is that you can do it a piece at a time. Nowhere is it written that it must all be done at once. Start with a blog and writing some fresh new content or update your design. Start making use of social media like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  There are so many options. Pick one and do it well, then add another and so on. Remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but at the same time, the sooner you get started, the sooner your business will reap the rewards!

Silver ‘Re ‘ Cap

Tweak your online image STEP BY STEP! I know a lot of you just sang that! It alright, I’ve been doing it through the entire writing process.

    1. Have fun creating an effective design that makes the first impression you want. Take your time and do it right. If you don’t have the skill-set required, admit it and hire a professional. You only have the opportunity to make one first impression, so make it a good one.
    2. Consider all the different options to bring more traffic to your site. Blogging is highly recommended.  Past that, do what you believe is best for your business and do it well.
    3. Build a relationship with your target audience through well thought out personas and then delivering the content that they want.
    4. Create CTAs and landing pages offering something of value.
    5. Don’t wait, more and more people are making buying decisions online every hour of every day, get started and grab your piece of the pie!

otr_logo_3DAs always your comments and opinions are valued and desired.

Colin is the Social Media and Content Marketing guru at OTR WebSocial Media is a Conversation Solutions a web development & content marketing company since 2000, with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

Follow Colin on Twitter @CBSilvercap

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Targeted Content: Lock On

Posted on May 21, 2013 by SilverCap

You’re on our way! You have started a blog and are posting regularly on topics that are relevant to your industry. You have upgraded your web presence to a responsive site. (Most people are using mobile devices these days to gain access to the web and will make buying decisions on their mobile devices). You did not want to miss the boat on that and have potential customers go with a competitor because of the lack of convenience with your web presence! You’ve got your “Calls to Action” and “Landing Pages”; you’re ready. But, ninety days go by and you are not seeing the results you expected. Why? The content is relevant to your industry which is great, but is that content being directed to the right person?

BUYER PERSONAS

We now need to create “Buyer Personas” and do so in an intentional manner. Buyer personas will help us write content that is more relevant to our specific clientèle – both current and future. We need to think of writing content the same way we would write a letter. The first thing we need to consider is: who are we writing to? It would be awfully difficult to write a good letter to someone when  we don’t know the first thing about them!

WHO IS OUR IDEAL CUSTOMER?

Who are they? How old are they? Are they married? Single? What is their income? Are they workaholics? We can ask all sorts of questions to create our fictitious customers. The more we ask, the better. All the questions we ask ourselves will help us identify these personas. After we establish who they are, we need to name them and even give them a picture. This will help us identify with them. We will view them all as people and thus treat them as such. Now what do we do with these personas?

SURVEY OUR PERSONAS

Now we need to find people who are unbiased and fit our profiles. We need at least 20. The more we get, the better our results. We need to make sure we’ve prepared a list of open-ended questions to ask them. Once we’ve gathered all the data on all our personas, we can begin sorting through it and discovering what our target market needs.

CREATE TARGETED CONTENT

We know who it is we want to sell our product to and what it is that they want!  We know who we are writing the letter to!  Now we can make sure our content speaks to them and satisfies their needs. Now that we’ve locked onto their needs as a customer, they will be more likely to seek us out when they are in need of the products and services we provide … because we are building a relationship with them. We understand them. Who doesn’t want to be understood?

SILVER ‘RE’ CAP

  • Who is our ideal client?
  • Are there several?
  • What are their needs?
  • Lock on and feed them targeted content.

Post comments and ask questions relative to your business and asSocial Media is a Conversation a community we can provide input and improve together.

Colin is the Social Media and Content Marketing guru at OTR Web Solutions a web development & content marketing company since 2000, with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

If you have not yet moved to a responsive web presence  Read This Blog Post

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Social Media Management – Get Amplified

Posted on May 16, 2013 by SilverCap

Social Media Management, the ever evolving field that sometime makes us want to run for the hills. It can be overwhelming, yet it is vital to our success on-line and as a business.To be successful, we need to not only be on-line, but we need to be effective on-line  Some of us understand this and then build a static website and leave it at that. After some time we notice that we are not getting any traffic and get frustrated. Maybe we took the next step and started blogging because we heard that fresh content will help us be visible and keep people coming back to our site. Now we have a limited number of people visiting our site and reading our blog posts. This is good! The problem is now that we’ve hit a plateau in the number of visitors we get and we are not gaining the business we’ve hoped to. Understanding this we then may ask, “How can we be even more visible on-line ” This is the question we ask because we want to get the biggest return on investment we possibly can on our web presence. Enter social media! In this post we will explore three social media outlets and get amplified:

Twitter

Let’s think of Twitter as a front page headline on what is going on with our business blog. We have 140 characters to get our message across in a concise and intriguing manner. If we write an intriguing tweet that, of course, leads to valuable, relevant content, we will be re-tweeted and quoted by our followers. Then their followers will have the opportunity to re-tweet and so on. Twitter is where your posts have the opportunity to go viral! If we only have our blog and no twitter account then we will only have a limited number of ways to be found., but if we then tweet with a link to our blog our exposure grows exponentially.

Great Content + Twitter = More visitors

Of course we will need to convert these visitors to leads and then to customers, but we can’t very well make these conversions if they are not on our website to begin with! Social media can assist in this area as well. We can use another form of social media to put a face and personality on our business.

Facebook

Facebook is where we show our human side. We still can link to our content, and attract visitors to our web presence, but here we are not limited by 140 characters. Here we can post images. We can also post about events we are holding and introduce the world to our most important resource…. our people. Even today in the age where we can find anything from our smart phone on any number of responsive websites, we still want to know who is on the other end of the deal. We want to get a feel for them before we decide to do business with them. We can use Facebook to post about a charity we are sponsoring, a corporate event we held with our co-workers and business partners. We have an opportunity to show our ‘face’. As consumers, are we more likely to do business with an email or with a business we can identify with on a human level?

Great Content + Facebook = Human Connection

Google+

Google+ is an interesting case. It does not have the following that Twitter and Facebook have. What it does have that the Twitter and Facebook do not have is a very intimate relationship with Google. When properly used, with appropriate keywords in our Google+ posts we can gain better page rank on Google. We need to be on Google+ and cultivate a following to multiply our exposure to the world through the Google search engine.

Great Content + (Google+) + Keywords = Google Love

The Silver ‘Re’ Cap

  • Twitter – Get viral! Get the exposure your great content deserves.
  • Facebook – Show off your greatest resource, your people.
  • Google+ – Better page rank through Google love.

As always we value your comments, this blog exists for you!Social Media is a Conversation

Post comments and ask questions relative to your business and as a community we can provide input and improve together.
otr_logo_3D

Colin is the Social Media and Content Marketing guru at OTR Web Solutions a web development and content marketing company since 2000, with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

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Social Media is a Conversation

Posted on April 30, 2013 by SilverCap

Start the Conversation

We all know that social media is vital to promoting products and services. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, Pinterest, YouTube and so on, all provide different methods of delivering our message. The question is, are we doing it effectively? Are we just throwing up words on a page for people to read and then moving on to the next post by someone else, or are we grabbing the attention of the reader and beckoning them to be involved? Quite often I see social media being used by businesses as a form of advertising similar to print, TV, or radio. While this does get the message out on the web, it puts the ‘article’ in a box. It is closed.  What if we were to start a conversation instead?

What if we were to start a conversation about an aspect of a product or service that the reader could relate to his or her needs?  Let’s say we operate a moving company and we want to communicate the importance of proper preparations for moving day. As the movers, we most likely have more experience than the client and could simply put up a check list:

-Wrap fragile objects in bubble wrap and label fragile

-Disassemble awkward pieces

-Clearly label all rooms at the destination

-Clearly label everything being moved according to what room it is going to

These are all valid and are very good advice when it comes to making what is stressful day go smoothly. The problem is we have simply made a list. It is closed and we gain nothing more than what we have asked for. What if instead we blogged about it and asked questions about past moving experiences and what could have made them better?

We would now be showing that we want peoples’ input so we can improve our service and the moving experience. Think about it, EVERYONE has had a bad moving experience and EVERYONE has some input as to how moving day could be improved. Some companies send out a follow-up survey to ask about the experience. This is good since it tells us if we did a good job according to the criteria that we set out for ourselves. Wouldn’t it be even better if we linked all our social media outlets to our blog and posed a question such as, ‘Where was there room for improvement on your last move?’ or ‘What makes for a successful moving experience?’. By asking the questions we are giving the readers, including prospective clients, permission to give us feedback designed to improve our service. We are creating a relationship by inviting clients into the process by way of an online conversation. We can still include our checklist in the blog, but more importantly, we are inviting feedback not just allowing it.

This way of starting a conversation through social media is applicable to any product or service. We are showing prospects that we care about what we do and that we care about them. We can tap into an incredible resource that is constantly evolving. If we are tapped in then we can constantly be improving our products and services.  Not only will this position us ahead of our competition, it is more likely to convert prospects into customers – satisfied customers. So, step outside the box and invite the prospects to join in a conversation about your products and services. Who knows where it could lead?

Social Media is a ConversationAs always we value your comments, this blog exists for you!

Post comments and ask questions relative to your business and as a community we can provide input and improve together.

 

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Responsive Web Design

Posted on October 26, 2012 by admin

Why Responsive Web?

A website was once the domain of the desktop. Everything took place within your desktop computer and layouts, architecture, navigation, copy, images, movies, eCommerce and search engine optimisation (SEO) were the keys to a websites success. Then along came laptops and nothing much changed as a laptop was really just a smaller version of your desktop that could travel.

Mobile Phones

Then came mobile phones and  later tablets and the world of websites was forever changed. At first phones made no difference as they were used strictly for, strangely enough making phone calls. But then phones became “smarter” and over time became a medium for viewing websites. In the beginning users were satisfied with stretching out the section of a website they wanted to see in their smartphone – but that quickly waned as an increasingly frustrating experience.

It soon became apparent that a website required the normal desktop version and at a minimum a “mobile” version, which basically was a stripped down form of your main website … if you wanted to reach the mobile smartphone market. Not a lot of graphics and made to load fast – just the information please, we are users on the go.

Mobile Websites

Mobile websites worked and a whole market grew of web developers who could build a “mobile website” for your company. The coding behind the mobile site determined if the browser was a smartphone or a desktop and automatically showed you the appropriate version. Often it was displayed as m.mywebsite.com. One of the downsides was you now had two (or three if you had a tablet version) websites to keep current, maintain and of course optimise for the search engines. Another was you often were delivering two entirely different brand messages. Experience showed that the mobile versions often languished behind the desktop website.

Facebook and Mobile

Why the fuss over websites that will work in smartphones and tablets? To put it in monetary terms, remember when Facebook was taken public and the value of the shares immediately plummeted? Why was that? The analysts’ fears were that Facebook would not be able to take advantage of the booming mobile market with their advertising. If they could not monetize advertising in the mobile market the financial analysts knew that Facebook would be in big trouble. Did you read about the big jump in Facebook shares (23%) in October 2012 – why was that? Facebook showed revenues from mobile advertising exceeded expectations and grew 14%. If your website does not work efficiently in the mobile/smartphone/tablet market you are dead to the growing majority of your market.

Responsive Web Eliminates the Separate Mobile Web Version

One definition of a Responsive Website is: A website that adapts to the environment in which it is being viewed; thus providing an optimal viewing and user experience.
This means creating a website that adapts to different screen sizes by resizing and reformatting the content. As in the image below there might be a 3-column site with large images and full navigation on a big screen and a single column scrolling site with in-line navigation and smaller images on your smartphone.

Most importantly the content remains the same in each instance.

One Website – One Brand Message – All Devices & Platforms

Responsive Web Benefits

Many times your website viewer wants to find just your phone number or contact information and a responsive website allows for a “click to call” function. No need to try to remember the number and then type into your phone – just click the number and your phone asks if you want to call. It is that simple.

One Website for any application or device – This means you are updating content for only one website and never have to worry if the caller was seeing something that was out of date on the mobile site. Your viewers get the same content no matter what device they view your site. Never again a stripped down version of your website created solely for the mobile audience.

One Website to optimise for the search engines – all of your SEO work carries across no matter the device your customer is viewing your website. The search engines are indexing your one site rather than a mobile version, a tablet version and a desktop version. No longer are you splitting your rankings between web versions and trying to keep the content different on each site while still attempting to deliver the same message.

E-commerce can be responsive as well – Purchases can be made on-line with a responsive website when your eCommerce store is included. The same coding techniques are used for your eCommerce applications thus making them available to all users.

All this good stuff comes at a cost as it is not a simple task to accomplish – but the additional cost of development is far outweighed by the usability you deliver to your website users.

 

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company building websites since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

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Asking the Pro’s

Posted on April 15, 2012 by ianotr

I have been working a trade show to showcase one of our new products and I am always amazed at the diversity of people that wander by the booths. At a trade show open to the public you will get the good, the bad and the ugly!

My first experience, the first day and just as the show opened was an older gentleman who started out by asking me, “If I thought this Social Media stuff was going to impact business today”? I responded by saying it is impacting business already and went on to speak about how important Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and your blog was to business. I explained the concept of the blog and how it added relevant content to your website and how over a period of time you would add a great number of pages to your website. I explained how to use your blog as content for your Facebook and Twitter pages - feeding people back to your blog and from there to your website.

He nodded and looked like he was listening and then asked about adding new content to your website and how he had read that it was important for your search results to have regular new content.  I responded by saying yes that is true and that is one of the benefits of having a blog on your site. He looked at me and said … “Well I don’t think a blog is important!” and I not so brightly responded that I would have to disagree with that conclusion. He looked at me anger all over his face and said, “Don’t tell me how to run my business!” and stomped away.

The booth across from me is a computer store and repair service. I would no more go to them and ask for them to fix my computer and then tell them how to do it because I had read an article somewhere. They are the professionals and they know computers and how to service them.

I had occasion to have a drywall installer in my home a while back. He was installing drywall in a room we were redoing. I watched and asked a lot of questions. The fellow was very generous with his time and my seemingly never ending questions. When he was finished the job was first class and I was very pleased. I decided to make one more change adjoining the area that had been done and with all of my new-found knowledge I figured I could do this myself. What a disaster – I quickly discovered a bit of head knowledge does not replace experience!

On the other side of the experience two booths down was a gentleman selling children’s books he had written and published and wanted to know about how Social Media might help his business. He listened and heard and we set an appointment to talk about this further at a later date. Am I going to make a lot of money of this future meeting … nope, but that is not the point. The gentleman wanted to learn and he will most likely use our software to deploy his Social Media Campaign and we might get a website out of it down the road. The thing is he acknowledged he wanted information and was willing to listen.

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America. The newest project by OTR is OTR Web Host – websites for small business.

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Facebook Traps

Posted on March 10, 2012 by ianotr

I was sent a notice today about some wardrobe malfunctions and to click on this link to see the video behind the scenes! Spammers and virus spreaders know to prey on our inner dark curiosity … and often they can be successful if we don’t guard ourselves.

Following are 10 suggestions for Facebook users:

1> Don’t tell us something bad will happen if we don’t forward your prayer or make a wish and then forward to our friends. It won’t and it really makes you look silly.

2> You will not get a free ticket to an airline or a gift certificate for some sexy lingerie if you only will like a page … what you will get is a scam survey at best.

3> As horrid as a picture of a sick child or animal might be … Facebook will not donate money for every Like. Don’t send it on we really do not need to see it.

4> If you are tempted to read the lurid account of I can’t believe he did this to his girlfriend, daughter, wife etc. … well you probably deserve what you get … a virus and some embarrassment as all your friends see what you have been tempted to view.

5> If you like games … good on you and play away. However when you join a new game and it asks who to send invites to, don’t select your entire friends list. A lot of us don’t play and the farm will have to grow without our help. Just sayin’

6> When you click on application and you get to the screen that states “Request For Permission” think long and hard and make sure you know the application. When it states the app can then post to your Wall as you … that is exactly what it means. Do you really want to give the ability to someone to post your wall as you?? Of course then all of your friends get your/their spam product posts.

7> Hoaxes from – A Killer In Your Fridge to the Zulican Fish Virus. Take a moment to do a bit of research in sites like http://www.hoaxbusters.org/ BEFORE you send it on … PLEASE.

8> Urban Legends and these range all over from – FDA health advisory regarding drugs containing PPA (phenylpropanolamine) to Cut Onion Contamination again PLEASE do some research before you forward or post. Here is a good site for Urban Legendshttp://www.snopes.com/

9> Any application offering to show you who has viewed your profile, who your Facebook stalkers are etc., are guaranteed to be fraudulent. Facebook doesn’t allow developers access to the data required to create apps like this. Many unsuspecting users might be under the impression that if it’s on Facebook then it must be legitimate. That is totally not the case.

10> Lastly your privacy is important. Take the time to review your privacy settings. Here is the official Facebook page on Privacyhttps://www.facebook.com/help/privacy and this offers some insight as well http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-privacy-now-2011-10

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

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The Truth About Web Design

Posted on February 13, 2012 by ianotr

You are sitting with the IT Manager of a potential new client, they have been through your portfolio and like what they have seen and recognise that their website needs some professional help. This would appear to be a very good scenario and it is time to go in and close the deal. But wait the IT Manager just asked me what I thought of the corporate logo or the old website design? I had presumed that was why they had called us … because well it is brutal to say the least.

Like a lamb to the slaughter I tell the truth. The design is horrid and needs a complete rework and that is one of  the first places we will start in our brand exercise. There I have said it and I know the client will appreciate my professional honesty, except the look on his face tells me different. I just attacked his work, his baby he was the one that built this, this, what words can describe this brutal attempt at design! There is no place to go, backtracking is a waste of time and the meeting is rapidly coming to a close … but not the deal. No that deal is not going to close, at least with me.

You would think if you have done this once (and I have) you would never do it again! But alas sometimes you get so caught up in the honesty of the moment (and I have) that you forget and blurt out again how bad something is … and again go home without the deal in your pocket. Generally I presume it is not because you want to show the client how bad something is, but rather it is because you are so excited, as you know your team can make a very good impression and build something that works for the client.

Lessons learned in over 14 years in this business? First designers design, sometimes well and sometimes not so well, but for the most part they make very poor software coders. Second software coders write code and again sometimes well and sometimes not so well, but for the most part they make very poor designers. Third, it is probably best not to tell either group that generalisation to their face. It does not go over well.

Lastly and I know this so well from my years in the life insurance sales, a lifetime ago, when you know you have closed a deal and everyone is comfortable and chatting with their guard down … shut up!

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

Posted in Corporate Branding, Web Design | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Social Media – Luxury or Necessity

Posted on February 3, 2012 by ianotr

Ask yourself this question. Will my business succeed without regular interaction with my customers and employees? I think most business people recognise that they will not be successful if they eliminate or restrict communication with their customers and employees.

What is Social Media? Quoting direct from Wikipedia,  … define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.”[1] Social media is media for social interaction as a super-set beyond social communication. Enabled by ubiquitously accessible and scalable communication techniques, social media has substantially changed the way organizations, communities, and individuals communicate.”

Well that was a mouthful … in simpler terms social media allows people and business to communicate and interact within a public forum. Customers and employees are expecting companies today to listen, engage and respond and that is what Social Media does best.

The ever-present fear from many businesses is that if we implement a Social Media platform for our business, people or employees will say something bad about the company, our services or products. The truth is they are saying it regardless and what a Social Media strategy accomplishes is to allow you to monitor your reputation and deliver your message. The other side of that coin is people are going to say good things about your company, services and products. Social Media interacts with every touch-point within your business from sales to customer service to human resources.

Another aspect of Social Media or what is now often called Social Business is the corporate blog which allows for you to become recognised as an expert in your field. People read what you write and you give them the opportunity to ask questions and you answer … well it doesn’t get much better than that for positive reinforcement of your business. Another benefit of the corporate blog is that it adds regular pages of fresh content to your website and I cannot think of a single search engine that does not like that to take place. People read your blog, “like” your blog on Facebook, share your post or Tweet your post and all that creates links and traffic to your website. So aside from interacting with your customers and employees you are also building traffic to your website!

Again quoting from Wikipedia,  … According to a report by Nielson “In the U.S. alone, total minutes spent on social networking sites has increased 83 percent year-over-year. In fact, total minutes spent on Facebook increased nearly 700 percent year-over-year, growing from 1.7 billion minutes in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009, making it the No. 1 social networking site for the month.”

The concluding fact is that business cannot ignore Social Media and they must participate and have a Social Media strategy in place. Social Media is not a luxury or even a necessary evil, it is a positive tool for business to hear, communicate and interact with their customers and employees. Without a Social Media platform and strategy in place, you risk being left behind your competition.

What is a blog post without a call to action … if you recognise that your business needs to participate in Social Media, OTR Web has solutions for your company. Visit our website, our Facebook page or contact OTR and we will discuss how we can help work with your business.

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

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Waste of $40K or Building Your Brand

Posted on January 30, 2012 by ianotr
Putting Paint to Canvas

If there is no art and if there is no feeling then all we have is a graphic.

Some years back I went into a town office and spoke to the person responsible for their web development. We chatted away and I made mention of their logo, which I felt was rather strong, and asked why it was not part of their website? The answer I quite huffily received floored me “… it is not necessary for a logo to be part of a website.” I left shortly thereafter as I have found through experience it is of little benefit to try to work with or educate a person who evidently knows far more than you do about a subject.

I sat down some time later with another person who had asked me to look at their non-profit website, which I did and we put a plan together for them. Knowing beforehand they had little money we put a proposal together that we were knowingly going to lose money on … actually a lot of money; but my thought was if we develop this we could market to other organisations of the same type. Similar to the meeting above I ran into someone that had been to a couple of seminars and knew far more than I did about web development … and to top it off our price in their opinion was ridiculously high. I withdrew our proposal for the same reasons as above.

On the other side, there was a particular town that put out an RFP to re-brand. On the face of it this is a good idea, particularly if you are looking at defining and positioning the town and understand you need a consistent message, look and feel across all the touch points of your town. This town received a number of proposals, (I was not one of them for the record) ranging from a low of about $35K to over $100K and after deliberation and presentations they chose a contractor that came in around $40K.

Surveys were taken, discussions held and a brand book was developed. The brand book was  done in the usual formats and laid everything out as to how the new look was to be delivered complete with a definition of the town’s message. Then came the unveiling of the new logo … everyone was excited and the town proud of the design chosen. My personal opinion when I saw it some time later was “Oh My” as it looked to me like they were graphically saying, don’t come to our town as we have nothing to offer.

The description was the usual, this colour depicts this, and this other colour portrays this thought, and the graphic so clearly shows this and this and this. I read it and what came to mind was the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes. We spent $40K so it must be good and we will roll it out across every touch-point in our town. At least they recognise that the logo needs to be a part of their website which put them way ahead of the other town group.

On the surface it seems this town did everything correct. They sent out an RFP, they narrowed down to a choice of 2 or 3 and then had the selected groups make presentations to the selection committee and then chose and awarded the contract. Using that method, you often can luck out and the design team can come up with a winner … and other times it can be a $40K disaster.

Have you ever sat on a committee? Everyone has an opinion and in their own field they are probably very good and, their opinion in their field probably has some merit. Remember the first paragraph of this article? If the person “… it is not necessary for a logo to be part of a website” was on the committee and had a strong voice or if someone who had been to a seminar and now was an authority was part of the group … well I pity the contractor.

So what could the town have done to protect themselves? In my opinion they should have hired a consultant to create the RFP and assist in selecting the short-list. Then the consultant could have guided the committee through to the final choice and been the contact point for the contractor. Professional to professional and the town ends up the winner.

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions Inc., a Web Development company serving clients across North America. It takes a team to create a website that works.

Posted in Corporate Branding, Web Design | Tagged , | Comments Off