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News, insight and tips from the social web.
The Hoop blog covers the evolving digital landscape, social media, mobile communications, content marketing and also includes 5 top finds and Fish on Friday. Feel free to make comments.
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Social media tips you can use now »
Social media is not just the latest buzz. It’s what the web is for.
It is largely self organised by people who naturally want to find and share interesting things. This is changing how corporate communication teams think. It’s also opening up fascinating new opportunities to work in a new way.
We offer a few tips on just some of things you can do to join the conversation and illustrate how others are doing it right.
Get a twitter account
It’s not just waffle. Dell has generated more than $1m in sales by broadcasting discount alerts on Twitter.
And others
The UK Food & Drink Federation, after a couple of months usage, claim Twitter is one of the major referring sources of traffic to its website.
Get some advice first, and then get blogging
You can reach many more people with customer service information in a blog than you can by phone. Reduce inbound calls by putting solutions to common problems on a blog. Pretty soon you’re in big league savings.
Let your staff write blogs and give outsiders the inside view of your company culture. Think what you could save on PR and print communications.
Re-think press and PR
More people follow Jonathan Ross on Twitter than read the Independent. A front page referral on a major social bookmarking site such as Digg or Delicious will reach more people than a front page in the FT. Online PR costs less than traditional PR and reaches more people.
Release news to your website first
With rare exceptions, news breaks faster online than any other medium. Release your news online first, generate traffic to your site and benefit from search engine uplift for future news releases.
Think of yourself as a social publisher
People want your information. Staff, customers, shareholders, partners and regulators. Let them have it the way they want it. Publish your information using the rich array of social publishing tools at your disposal. Understand and enjoy the new role this affords you in the new communications business.
Track as much as you can
Because digital media is so measurable you can see what works and what doesn’t. Follow the progress of a good video blog or news release as it moves around the world, helped on by the growing web of people who want your story, and will pass it on to others.
And for pure, unadulterated inspiration
Subscribe for FREE to TED talks and your life will never be the same again.
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Usability is just good business »
Every time you battle with a website just to find what you want, that’s bad usability, and bad business.
So what’s the big deal
When you use the internet you continually make micro decisions about navigation, visual appeal, quality of content or copy and also, the kind of experience you are having. Can I see what I’m looking for, do I understand that link, can I read that copy, is this the right button etc. If this process is intuitive and painless, and seems to meet most of your requirements, then the team behind the site you’re on understands the power of good usability. Anything less than this means the business behind it undervalues you, the user. Do you want to do business with a business like that?
User centred thinking
A user centred approach to creating web sites radically increases the likelihood of success because it delivers a much better online experience for site visitors. Good usability, or user experience, is a result of placing human, rather than technical needs at the centre of all planning and design decisions. Getting this right is all about the amount of work that goes in at the beginning to understand what site users want. Ironically then, the most simple sites are often the result of months of hard work by agency and client teams alike.
Why is usability important?
Good user experience is, increasingly, the critical factor in developing fruitful online relationships. For businesses that take usability seriously, the most common benefits or return on investment are:
• improved perceptions of brand
• increased conversion rates
• greater customer loyalty and retention
• increased customer advocacy
• increased traffic
• improved search rankings.
To understand how important usability really is you have only to think of your own experience of a bad website, and how quickly you left it.
So how does your site measure up?
Be honest with yourself, is your site up to the mark? Do you provide a positive experience for your visitors? Do they find your content easily, in the place they expect it and does it engage them? If your business is not thinking about usability now your web presence is probably doing your reputation more harm than good.
And that’s bad for business.
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