Finally, your corporate website can be relevant again
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been conducting research to measure how different social networks allow for integration with corporate websites and their assets. Over 3 years ago, I wrote a piece on how corporate websites are becoming irrelevant, due to trusted decisions between prospects and customers taking place off the corporate site. This piece, which still gets traffic has been translated into over a dozen languages –the market recognizes that corporate sites can no longer operate as silos when customers have left.
[Companies must integrate customers behavior on social networks to their corporate website to increase relevancy, word of mouth, and trust]
A plethora of options creates confusion in the market
Fast forward to 2010, and there too many options for brands to integrate these social features. While many have used community platforms to allow customers to connect to each other on branded domains, this strategy works for loyal customers and often may not reach prospects. Social networks, which have your customers and prospects, have taken note, and have launched a variety of products that allows their thriving communities of buyers and prospects to connect with static corporate sites. The challenge? There are so many features available, it’s confusing to figure out what to do.
Use this data as a roadmap and guide
Companies and organizations are confused by the wide variety of choices that social networks offer to help them connect to their customers, so I’ve created this menu to help them in understanding.
Matrix: Feature Attribute Benefits of Social Integration
| Feature | What it does | Benefits | Downsides | What no one tells you |
| Sharing Features | Allows users to share content from corporate websites to social networks | Free to deploy, as social newtorks offer features or Sharethis or Addthis | Beyond sharing and simple analytics, there’s limited functionality | It’s scary to send traffic away –but it cause viral effects you didn’t expect |
| Embeds and Widgets | Embed features on social networks (like Facebook Fan Reactions) on your corporate website | Breathes real social interaction to static corporate sites, showing real world customer interaction | Control over what’s being said is limited. | If you don’t integrate this with your look and feel and use default features your site will look amateur |
| Authentication | Login to a website using a social networking login, often through two clicks like Twitter connect. | Increase chances of interaction. Users hate filling out registration pages, so this allows them to ‘login’ faster using their own login. | You have less ability to glean their email address, as they’ve logged in another route. In the long run, you’ll have disparate data. | Social networks are really an identity play, by using this, they gain more control. |
| Cross Publishing from my site to social networks “Pollination” | Users can share information to specific friends in their social networks | Rapid sharing of content, and sometimes the ability for users to specifically select who they’ll share to –this is beyond simple sharing features as activities and actions can quickly spread | Spreading information means more disparate instances of data, making it hard for brands to maintain control. | Careful. Don’t allow for users to simply spam their friends with content, be selective. |
| Real time updates | Update websites in real time with social content on corporate sites. | Enable your corporate site to really be real time through updates in social networks in real time, and vice versa. | Not all content will be relevant, and excessive updates will become white noise. | Use this for key events, or important customer transactions, not the mundane activity. |
| Social Personalisation | Serve up content based on users profile information and previous behavior, see VW’s early experiments | Rather than subject customers to a generic user experience on your corporate website, customize the experience based on their social networking profile, increasing relevancy. | Create a series of specific content types is costly, as well as the engine to develop this. | Don’t assume what a customer does in Twitter is relevant to your own product, one size does not fit all. |
| Social Context | Present real time information based on their friends behavior, see HuffPo. | Allow your users friends to increase relevancy by suggesting content and products to each other –increasing rate of action. | This is very complicated system to create, and requires a mindset to let go to gain more as users may say recommend things you don’t like. | Every company is a media company, and the smartest companies realize they are a marketplace. |
| Application Platform | A platform that offers third parties to create web based applications using the social networks APIs, access to data | Companies want to extend unique features onto social networks (like the most popular content on a corporate site) to increase interaction | Costs to developing these applications are high, you need specific developers that understand the ever changing nuances of these platforms | You’ll need long term resources or budget to do this and your existing team may not have the skill set. |
Now that we’ve established a clear sense of the benefits and risks, let’s dive in and understand who offers what. I’ve created the following matrix that I will keep up to date, that will fast forward research activities.
Who Offers What: Social Networking Integration Features
| MySpace | |||||
| Sharing Features | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, Share on MySpace | Yes |
| Embeds and Widgets | Yes, Fan Box | Yes, third parties | Yes, 3rd parties | Yes, every page offers embed code | Yes, see Twitter Widgets |
| Authentication without password |
Yes, FB Connect |
OAuth | Yes, OAuth | OpenID, OAuth, and MySpaceID | Yes OAuth |
| Cross Publishing (Pollination) |
Yes | Yes (Buzz) | Yes (via REST APIs) | Yes, Share on MySpace | Yes, + with 3rd party tools |
| Real time updates between sites |
Yes (PubSubHubbub) | Yes (via REST APIs) | Yes, Real Time Stream | Yes | |
| Social Personalization | Yes | Yes | Yes (via REST APIs) | Yes, this can be done through MySpace’s REST APIs. | Yes. Access all twitter profile info and some behavioral data. |
| Social Context | Yes. see Examples |
Yes, with Google Friend Connect | Yes (Most content on the site) | Yes. MySpace Real Time Stream to get songs from friends, could also use data to suggest artists to others. | Yes. One could show articles from the people you follow have shared or tweeted about. Example: Feedera digest. |
| Application Platform | Yes | Yes | Offers an OpensSocial platform to select partners |
Yes, OpenSocial. | Yes. See wiki and getting started guide. |
Recommendations: Develop a Pragmatic Strategy
- First, understand your customers. It’s unrealistic for you to deploy all of the features above, in fact that would only confuse your customers. Instead do research and find out where your customers are. Then, you’ll know which social network to focus on, and data showing their existing behaviors will tell you which features to focus on.
- Integrate this with your website roadmap. Start simple then evolve. Don’t try to boil the ocean, start small with simple sharing features, then follow the stack as I laid out in the second matrix. This is a roadmap that you should use to across the next few years as your corporate website evolves, fusing in social features.
- Find partners and agencies that will guide you. Don’t go this alone, find agency partners, or technology providers that know this space and have experiences to reduce your risk. For example, managing all the social connections is more than a brand can take on, for example Gigya, (an Altimeter client) manages all those connections for brands. Forward this post to agency partners and ask them where they are on this roadmap and who they’ve partnered with to do this.
Other Resources
- Facebook Connect, and offers quite a few examples
- LinkedIn Platform announcement, and API site
- Google Friend Connect Suggested Content:
- Google getting feeds into Buzz:
- PubSubHubbub
- MySpace Platform
- Twitter’s API page
- OAuth Resources
- OpenStack with explanations.
- XMPP, part technical (thanks to Brent)
Research Sources
I did my own research to fill in the matrix as much as possible, then went directly to folks that work at those social networks to verify. Thanks to the helpful and knowledgeable Josh Elman, Chris Messina, Adam Nash, (LinkedIn), Amy Walgenbach (MySpace).
View full post on Web Strategy by Jeremiah
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
Thanks, fixed.
Very well done. Great job
typo: Correct “orginizations”
Use this data as a roadmap and guide
Companies and “organizations”
[...] Jeremy Qwyang, en av världens främsta onlinestrateger, beskriver hur en webbplats uppdateras med hjälp av sociala funktioner. [...]
[...] post: Roadmap: Make Your Corporate Websites Relevant by Integrating … Share and [...]
Great piece, Jeremiah.
Some companies forget that sales and marketing are (or should be) complementary and intertwined and that the greatest levels of success often require multiple sales and marketing channels that are also complementary and intertwined.
The same can also be said for what firms do on/with the Internet: If they only have one channel on the Web (say a solitary Website), then there can be no cross-pollination or intertwining of effort to support each other. Ergo, smart companies have one or more Websites, supported by one or more blogs, and MULTIPLE social media/networking tools and services that they use to engage with customers, partners, investors, etc. and drive sales and evangelization.
Again, very well put.
Dave Politis,
Politis Communications
Great web 2.0 strategy points!
The only problem with most of our customers down here is that they still mistake the f and t icons on their new web design project with fax / telephone glyphs
Wow that's exactly what I wanted to hear Ted.
Seth
The strategist should certainly find out where their customers and prospects are in social networks, and then use the right social networks depending on that region. You are right.
Have you see my stats pages?
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/01/19/a...
Jeremiah, great overview!
A crucial statement is: 'Social networks are really an identity play, by using this, they gain more control.'
It is interesting to indicate the two flavours of identity provisioning:
1. 'delegated' identities: this is what e.g. Facebook is doing with Facebook connect, and Twitter is doing with OAuth: 3rd party application let you authenticate using the user's Facebook / Twitter identities. They effectively create their own 'ecosystem' around Facebook and Twitter (the same goes other platforms).
In a way this poses effective 'lock-in' of users to these platforms.
2. 'federated' identity: OpenId is a good example; you are not bound to the identity provisioning; and no lock-in takes place.
For authentication of blog comments, good examples are Disqus.com (seen on this blog) and ECHO (that is what I use myself on my blog http://www.jeroendemiranda.com ).
I was just in India and saw that Orkut still has a lot of relevance. While in The Philippines, I learned of the great presence of Friendster (?!) there and in Indonesia. And again, when in China and Japan, my colleagues informed me that social networking sites like Facebook are not nearly as popular as they are in the U.S. I guess the question I have is what happens when you are going into new markets and these go-to social networks don't have the same relevance? If I were to add one thing to your post, it might be to make sure your web developers and marketing teams have a strategy that works for the market where you want to enter or grow.
Not only interesting but also thorough and well-presented. Thanks Jeremiah – your blog is a tremendous source of information.
Really great post, especially the charts.
Based entirely on my personal surfing experiences I'd venture to say that few brands have made it past more than 2 or 3 of these items for their corporate sites (although many networks and content sites have adopted far more) but I think that's all going to change. With 400 million users on Facebook alone + Twitter & others the upside and integration possibilities are too good to pass on for site engagement & viral exposure.
Printing this up as a roadmap for our efforts this year. Thanks.
this is a great overview Jeremiah. even with my simple site I have included tweetmeme, facebook connect and Disqus; which is easily accomplished with WordPress themes (similar to your site here, actually). thanks for the overview.
@mwalsh
Jeremiah, I am in 100% agreement that brands need to thread social networking functionality through their sites, but they can not, do not and should not go about using the raw APIs to do it. It's a wasted investment.
That's why tools like Echo are so popular right now, 2 lines of code and your site is real-time, aggregates conversations from the social web and shares your content to all the social networks at the same time. Hundreds of API calls and features 'for free'.
Also, it's not just connecting to the social web, but it's using the cutting edge ideas and metaphors from the social web right there on your page (social likes, real-time updates, faces/avatars attached to everything etc).
I know this sounds like a plug, but actually it's what we're seeing so might be helpful
Jeremy, thanks fixed.
Jeremiah, I am in 100% agreement that brands need to thread social networking functionality through their sites, but they can not, do not and should not go about using the raw APIs to do it. It's a wasted investment.
That's why tools like Echo are so popular right now, 2 lines of code and your site is real-time, aggregates conversations from the social web and shares your content to all the social networks at the same time. Hundreds of API calls and features 'for free'.
Also, it's not just connecting to the social web, but it's using the cutting edge ideas and metaphors from the social web right there on your page (social likes, real-time updates, faces/avatars attached to everything etc).
I know this sounds like a plug, but actually it's what we're seeing so might be helpful
Jeremiah, I am in 100% agreement that brands need to thread social networking functionality through their sites, but they can not, do not and should not go about using the raw APIs to do it. It's a wasted investment.
That's why tools like Echo are so popular right now, 2 lines of code and your site is real-time, aggregates conversations from the social web and shares your content to all the social networks at the same time. Hundreds of API calls and features 'for free'.
Also, it's not just connecting to the social web, but it's using the cutting edge ideas and metaphors from the social web right there on your page (social likes, real-time updates, faces/avatars attached to everything etc).
I know this sounds like a plug, but actually it's what we're seeing so might be helpful
Cery interesting
Excellent synopsis. Thank you very much for this.
(Typo: “Fast foward to 2010,”)
Bravo! Your structuring of the work will be a meaningful aid to workgroups' plan of attack. Thank you.