You’re wanting to put together an internet marketing or social media marketing campaign, but you’re wondering “Where do I even start?” Don’t worry, that’s a perfectly legitimate question! There’s a lot going on in social media marketing. But realistically, the question should be “Where does my social media effort end?”
Too often I’ve seen companies (not commonly global ones such as Dell or Starbucks) fail to address this question and this is one reason I liked the Skittles campaign. They went back to the basics. They thought about where their social media efforts would inevitably end – their website – and worked from there.
If you’re running a Twitter profile, a MySpace Page, a Facebook Page (due to recent updates), or a YouTube channel, at one time or another, a customer is going to end up at your website (or you should hope so!). When that customer gets to your site, you have about 30 seconds to really impress them. This is where your brand has to live up to what you’ve been doing.
You’ve set expectations because you showed them you were hip and know what’s going on when you entered into their playground (Twitter, Facebook, SERP, etc). But if they come to your site and it looks like it has an animated gif of a flame and a marquee welcome message, it’s going to ruin your brands authenticity. The relationship you just built with that customer will be tarnished, the customer dejected and lied to (OK, I might be moderately over dramatizing that, but it’s to express the importance).
Imagine it this way. You’re wanting to get some new furniture. So you’re wondering what furniture stores are in your area. You hop onto your laptop and do a quick google search to find a store, because that’s what people do. The furniture store you find has a good online presence and all, so you decide to head there. But when you get there, their couches have stains on them, there are pillows all over the floor, blankets strewn from couch to couch, and it more or less looks like my 5 year old nephew had a field day making a fort out of anything possible. In other words- the place is in shambles.
I think I could safely say that you wouldn’t return to that furniture store. There’s just no way a store could get away with this and stay in business long (then again, people returned to Kohls). But on the internet companies and people trying to develop a micro-brand somehow think it’s acceptable to do the online equivalent.
So what can you do?
My suggestion is a website audit. Take an in-depth look at your site, its design, flow, keyword choice, content layout, colors- everything. You may need an entire overhaul, or you might need a few small changes. Either way, it will be well worth it.
