Interactive/Social Media Insights

Posted by Mark Drespling

As the old adage goes, keeping things simple has been an excellent mantra when designing and building websites. I cannot count the number of times I have been requested to design and produce sites that try to use every trick in the book and fill pages with function after function because it is what is trendy. That being said, there is a time for enhanced functionality. By continually looking at business goals and aligning them to the desired behavior of the audience, the latest techniques and tools can be effectively implemented delivered to drive greater business success.

We are now seeing a time where the word “Simple” can generally be replaced by the word “Social” in this rule of thumb. As interactivity goes beyond a person interacting with a machine to a person interacting with another person, social tools can be just the sort of feature that a company needs to engage and embrace their audience. Does this mean a site has to become overly complex? No. Again, looking at the specific goals of the business as a whole, and not just in the Web channel, the selection and implementation of tools within the site, and usage of third party tools where the audience already lives, can help keep the overall website simple and easy to use.

Keep in mind that implementing social tools into a site does not necessarily reduce effort across the board. Your organization must be ready to invest the time and passion required to make these tools live. How many times have you seen a blog, a Twitter account, or a Facebook profile, to name a few, appear with great fanfare and then get left abandoned as a company looks for ways to leverage it? Careful planning and a willingness to fully embrace these tools is the key to success.

So, when looking at your next project, make sure to ask a few simple questions:

1. Is our organization ready to more actively engage with our audience?
2. Do we have the resources to invest the time required to cultivate a deeper relationship with our audience?
3. Are there specific areas of our business that can benefit from better connections with our audience?

Answering these questions can greatly assist you in developing a social strategy that is both effective and elegantly simple to use.

Post by Mark Drespling

Social media has been quite the opportunity for power to shift from large corporations to the public for awhile now. In the news recently is the story of Dave Carroll and his customer service ordeal when his guitar was severely damaged by the airline he was flying on. After several months of frustration, Dave took to the airwaves via you tube and published a music video about the situation. The resulting traffic and “viral” nature of the video caught the attention of the airline and they have taken steps to rectify the situation.

What does this tell us? Basically, companies need to wake up and get involved with all of the customer touch points and tools that are available. This one incident illustrated key problems with their overall customer service process and has exposed the issue to a much greater audience than any individual in their customer service organization could have predicted.

This is only one example of many that demonstrate the power of social media to improve the customer experience.

MSNBC recently published an article on this subject as well. In the article, “6 ways to leverage social media for a better vacation,” Christopher Elliot describes ways to better utilize the tools available to take back control of your travel experience.

Excerpted from the article:

1. Sign up now.
An account on Twitter or Facebook is free. Once you’ve joined, “friend” or follow anyone in your address book that also belongs to these sites, and then start talking. Remember, it’s a numbers game. A travel company is likelier to pay attention to someone with 10,000 followers than a lone wolf with just a handful of contacts. So don’t be shy.

2. Get engaged.
Becoming a “friend” to a socially active travel company, which means following their Twitter feed or becoming a “fan” of their Facebook page, is the next step. Often, they’ll begin paying attention to what you’re doing. So when you have something important to say about customer service, these airlines, car rental companies and hotels will be far likelier to listen to you than if you were a random customer.

3. Travel with a company that understands.
“When it comes to a holistic social media strategy, I feel many airlines are either lost, or still experimenting,” says Shashank Nigam, the chief executive of the aviation branding company SimpliFlying. “Or at least that’s how it seems to the outsider.” Pick a travel company at the vanguard of these changes, and you’re likelier to be heard. Nigam says among the airlines, JetBlue, Southwest and Alaska Airlines, have reached that level. Many other travel brands, including Marriott, Starwood and Hertz also have strong social media presences.

4. Keep it positive.
For now, at least, companies are behaving more like people on these social networking sites. In other words, a kind word can really take you a long way. It did for Paul Marr, who works for an advertising agency in Vancouver and recently found $120 in unexpected fees on his Allegiant Air ticket. He tried contacting the carrier through normal channels — to no avail — so he sent a friendly message to its Twitter account. Within minutes, his problem was fixed. “Need an airline that offers great deals and listens on Twitter?” he asked his followers. “@allegiantair called me within 30 mins of my last post. Grt cstmr service!”

5. Be patient.
Travel companies are still finding their way in this new world. Many corporations that are involved in social media aren’t really sure how they’ll use it in the future, only that it is likely to be useful. For example, the iconic Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles chats with customers and anyone else who happens to be on Twitter. Its social-media claim to fame, at least in the customer service department, is helping a guest who tweeted that he had a moth in his room. “He thanked us via Twitter, and also told us that the iron in his room was broken,” says hotel spokeswoman Melanie Boyer. “So we sent up a new one.” Not exactly a stop-the-presses success story until you consider the Bonaventure is one of only a few Los Angeles hotel that bothers to listen to the twittersphere.

6. Look to the next thing.
Google Wave, for example, is a new communication platform where text, photos and other information can be exchanged in real time. It’s expected to debut later this year, and when it does, be there along with the other early adopters. It’s only a matter of time before others join in, including some forward-looking travel companies. You’ll have their ear — at least until everyone else arrives.

Ultimately, it is up to each of us to take action when needed. It is also critically important for companies to embrace social media and take customer service to a new level.

Post by Mark Drespling

A Colleague of mine (Thanks Colleen!) pointed out a couple articles this week about Comcast and their success using Twitter as a tool to monitor and improve customer satisfaction. According to a recent Chicago Tribune article,

“…Researchers said Comcast benefited from its efforts to monitor customer feedback on blogs and Twitter so it could pinpoint disgruntled customers and address issues on a case-by-case basis…”

Like many large media organizations, customer satisfaction is key to both market and economic growth and this is another indicator that business is “getting it” and embracing emerging tools as essential to their business.

This post at Social Media Today details the Comcast/Twitter story even further with an in-depth analysis of the interactions with Frank Eliason, the man behind the Comcastcares Twitter account:

“…To date, Frank has sent 4,000 public updates to his twitter account, each under 140 characters. He answers questions as well as he can and sometimes forwards information to his office for direct follow-up…”

While the second account is one detailing a customer nightmare, it is clear that Comcast’s efforts to listen and engage directly with its customers, while not always solving the problem at hand, clearly is building stronger relationships and trust that may have not been there before.

These stories are not as isolated as they were a year or two ago and they will continue to grow rapidly over the next few years. I find that I cannot stress to our clients enough that the conversation is already happening and that the best way to minimize the bad and maximize the good is to just get in there. The tools are there and they are remarkably accessible. Ask yourself, how are you using emerging social media  tools to connect with your customers? You may be surprised by how much or how little you are taking advantage of social media and no time is better than now to engage your audience.

Post by Mark Drespling

Content Management Systems (CMS) have become a standard component for modern web sites. With the number of available packages on the market and the laundry list of options available in each one, making the right selection can be difficult and time-consuming. We have had considerable experience helping clients devise their web strategy and select the appropriate CMS, but key criteria in the selection process is often overlooked prior to our engagements. Here are a few questions that can help in the selection process.

How do you currently manage your web content?

Most organizations have some sort of method in place already for managing their web content. This may be an existing CMS platform (Sitecore, Sitefinity, & Drupal to name a few), a lighter content editing tool (such as Contribute, or one of the numerous blogging platforms for instance), or a trained expert within the organization that edits the code and publishes content on demand. Since any change in the current practices will require time and training, not to mention a potential resistance to the new way of doing things, a deep understanding o the current process needs to be assessed before selecting a new model to fit your needs.

Do you have staff in place to manage and create web content?

One of the biggest roadblocks to launching new and revised web sites is content. Generally speaking, integrating a CMS into a new or existing design is not as much of a challenge and sourcing, editing, generating, and governing the text and images that are to be included in the site. Without dedicated staff to handle the content needs of the site, you run the risk of having an easy to update site that no one is interested in viewing. To accommodate these content needs at the base level, you will want to consider the writer(s) of content for the site and at least 1 visual designer to assist in layout and imagery. Beyond that, custom HTML and development work may be needed from time to time for even the most robust CMS platforms.

How many people in the organization will be responsible for content on the site?

As an elaboration on the staffing question, determining the right CMS is often a matter of the number of authors and approvers that will be using it. For instance, if you currently employ a “webmaster” to manage you site and content is managed through this person, the user interface and content approval process may not be an important part of the selection. ON the other hand, if your organization is large with several different authors generating content with several more individuals approving and publishing, an easy-to-use tool set with comprehensive role management options would be the best approach.

How frequently will you update the content and on how many pages?

We have built a lot of sites in the past using CMS platforms that get little in the way of updates over time. Sure, some of the pages are regularly changed (events, news, & calendars to name a few), but a majority of the pages are fixed and may remain unchanged for years. If the site is primarily a brochure that requires little maintenance, some of the more powerful CMS tools may be too much. Alternatively, some sites that have a lot of content that needs to be changed regularly can be built on platforms that cannot handle this or scale as appropriate over time.

What is the criteria for successfully using the CMS?

Ultimately, understanding what indicators will point to a successful implementation will help greatly in planning and selecting the right tool. Time and money saved, less errors and bugs in the site, removal of bottlenecks from the publishing process, and empowering more individuals within your organization are just a few of the ways that CMS platforms can be selected and measured.

These are just a few of the questions that we ask when engaging with clients regarding CMS implementation. Creating a strategic foundation for a CMS platform will aid your organization greatly in making the best selection for your web site.

by Mark Drespling

One of the major debates I find myself having, both with myself and with colleagues over the years, is in the form vs. function conversation. Which is more important? Which one should lead a project? When does one end and the other begin? Ask a dozen designers and developers and you are likely to get a dozen different answers. Usually, they all are right from their own unique perspectives.

My perspective has generally been one where the two are united. In the case of web site design, long-term success is realized through the effective balance of both. A site that is stunning but doesn’t work is an immediate failure. A site that works flawlessly but doesn’t captivate and engage an audience over time runs the risk of becoming a virtual ghost town of a site. Our Interactive practice wrestles with this type of issue almost daily.

A recent article, In Defense of Eye Candy, delves into this subject at great length. In the article, Stephen P. Anderson describes the various dimensions and characteristics of aesthetics and beauty and how they influence and persuade individuals to use and appreciate interfaces on the Web and in the real world. As he asks questions about what we see and how it affects behavior, it becomes clearer and clearer that people are greatly informed about products and interfaces by the way they look, and that perception, while not always everything, is often the determining factor in a person’s choice to use one thing over another regardless of ease-of-use or convenience.

I leave you with a couple questions for discussion. What are your experiences with aesthetics and usability? Have you found yourself choosing one thing over another even though it is not the simpleset, easiest, or most reliable option available? Or, does the way something works, regardless of the “pretty factors”, the determining point that you make your choices?