Matrix: Evolution of Social Media Integration and Corporate Websites

Many Brands That Adopt Social Are ‘Throwing Away’ Hard Earned Traffic
 Many brands are jumping on the social media bandwagon, without giving proper thought about the impacts to their marketing effort.  In particular, many brands are putting ‘social chicklets’ on their homepage to “Follow us on Twitter” or “Friend us on Facebook” without considering the ramifications.

[Brands that arbitrarily adopt social tools may be unknowingly undermining their own efforts. Instead, first understand the full ramifications as you integrate social with your corporate website. Secondly, have a clear roadmap]

Marketers spend millions of dollars to get people to visit their corporate website, so why would they be so quick to send them away? Use this strategy matrix to help make your decisions. Be deliberate by first understanding the ramifications:

Matrix: Evolution of Social Media Integration and Corporate Websites

Sophistication Example Benefit Challenge
1) Do nothing, no social integration Corporate websites that have no integration with social tools at all. Cheap. Ignorance is bliss, at least in the short term Your corporate website is irrelevant.
2) Link directly away without a strategy Corporate homepages that have chickelts that say “Follow us on Twitter/Facebook/YouTube” sending traffic away, see sharethis, add this and tweetmeme Encourages growth of social channels Sending traffic away, without having a strategy
3) Link away, but encourage them to share with a pre-populated message A chicklet that encourages new Twitter followers to Tweet at their friends “I’m now following X brand” Triggers a social alert as a form of endorsement Better than the above, it may not have a followup or call to action
4) Brand experience is integrated in social channels Extending the brand to social channels, so the corporate experience is somewhat mirrored on social channels Regardless of wherever users go, they are still experiencing the brand Social channels sometimes serve better as a conversational area –not for traditional branding campaigns
5) Aggregating the discussion on your site Aggregating select conversations from Tweets like the skittles homepage did, top discussions in communities or blogs, see Disqus and Echo. Centralizes the discussion on your site, making it a resource to first look at. Low cost content Lack of control over which content can be created, still links off site
6) Social login systems that allow users to stay on site Using FB connect, or Twitter connect allow users to use their existing logins to access site, see how JanRain and Gigya (client) helps May increase sign ups, widening marketing funnel, chances are content is more accurate than a sign up form May not have access to email addresses, as users passthrough using social logins.
7) Social login systems that allow users to stay on site, but triggers viral loop In addition to the above, there’s an actual social or interactive experience on the corporate site that triggers them to share with their friends Users stay on site, interact with brand or peers, yet recruit other members in social networks Requires planning, a campaign, and extensive resources.
8. Complete integration between corporate site and social sites Other than URLs there’s no difference between a corporate site and a social site, the experiences are seamless Customers, prospects, and employees mix together, churning on new members and viral activity It doesn’t exist, yet.

Be Deliberate: Use This Roadmap For Your Web Strategy
Use this guide to map your current situation and where you plan to go, copy and paste the framework into your corporate planning deck, and identify where your assets are now.  Get actionable by taking these three steps:

  • Take inventory of current corporate website assets. Social strategists must determine what level of sophistication they are at now, and document in their project plans.  Take inventory of all corporate web assets and tag with this framework.
  • Identify what the desired state is, and then build a plan against it. Note that the further you go down in sophistication, the more resources and stakeholder buyin are needed.  Start small and slow, and be sure to have a strategy.
  • Don’t arbitrarily jump into the to social marketing space without measurable KPIs. Be deliberate in your actions.  Indicate on paper what the measurable goals are and how they’ll tie back to business metrics:  Increase brand awareness, increase leads, increase site conversion.

Once you’re ready to get actionable, and are ready to integrate the technologies, see this important matrix of Roadmap: Make Your Corporate Websites Relevant by Integrating Facebook, Google, MySpace, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

154 Replies to “Matrix: Evolution of Social Media Integration and Corporate Websites”

  1. Hello,
    I totally agree with the author, while attempting to get followers or fans the webmasters should take into consideration that they are actually making fb or twitter bigger using their own resources.

    Finally its the webmasters skills how he gets benefited from social media, he wants to grow using social media or make social media sites bigger using his skills and resources which are usually paid once.

    Ashish

  2. In addition, you're going to start seeing FB & Twitter options in more online banner ads. The goal is not to have FB act as a new corp page, but for it to possibly be a softer, more social intro to a brand. Once you get someone to the social site, then you can push them to the corp site. The engagement creates a stronger relationship in my opinion.

  3. I like what we (http://www.conversamarketing.com) did for http://www.castrolcrew.com. We built a unique experiences on each social network: Facebook (discussions/polls), Twitter (auto articles/news, promotions), flickr (Exclusive racing photos), YouTube (TV commercials) and then integrated them into the loyalty website to create a unique experience and destination for best customers (racing/auto enthusiasts). Visitors to Castrolcrew.com are then rewarded for their participation including contributing to the community/message board. The program is just getting started and but the results have been very encouraging: case study http://bit.ly/ajLwKr and case study presentation at the recent DMA/PMN Social Media Spotlight event in Feb '10 – http://bit.ly/acrROW

  4. I like what we (http://www.conversamarketing.com) did for http://www.castrolcrew.com. We built a unique experiences on each social network: Facebook (discussions/polls), Twitter (auto articles/news, promotions), flickr (Exclusive racing photos), YouTube (TV commercials) and then integrated them into the loyalty website to create a unique experience and destination for best customers (racing/auto enthusiasts). Visitors to Castrolcrew.com are then rewarded for their participation including contributing to the community/message board. The program is just getting started and but the results have been very encouraging: case study http://bit.ly/ajLwKr and case study presentation at the recent DMA/PMN Social Media Spotlight event in Feb '10 – http://bit.ly/acrROW

  7. Thanks for more insights JO.

    The key for me is that you always need to define your 'target interactions.' Know what you're hoping people will do when you enable any social technology on your site. This doesn't mean you can't get value out of unexpected kinds of interactions, but if you don't know what you WANT people to do, you can neither ask them to do it nor know whether they have.

  8. Thanks for more insights JO.

    The key for me is that you always need to define your 'target interactions.' Know what you're hoping people will do when you enable any social technology on your site. This doesn't mean you can't get value out of unexpected kinds of interactions, but if you don't know what you WANT people to do, you can neither ask them to do it nor know whether they have.

  9. I'm a bit confused on the statement “Other than URLs there™s no difference between a corporate site and a social site, the experiences are seamless” as being a good thing.

    I would think having each of the experiences being at least 20-30% different would be a good thing. After all I cannot have every technology each of the social sites comes up with on my site. Also for those of us with limited resources social sites offer the ability to branch out into new technologies, interactions and discussions with customers and prospects.

    I do agree that folks who actively send customers to a facebook page as a First stop are missing something, or have really a really bad CMS and cannot get the content up fast enough.

  10. I'm a bit confused on the statement “Other than URLs there™s no difference between a corporate site and a social site, the experiences are seamless” as being a good thing.

    I would think having each of the experiences being at least 20-30% different would be a good thing. After all I cannot have every technology each of the social sites comes up with on my site. Also for those of us with limited resources social sites offer the ability to branch out into new technologies, interactions and discussions with customers and prospects.

    I do agree that folks who actively send customers to a facebook page as a First stop are missing something, or have really a really bad CMS and cannot get the content up fast enough.

  11. Really interesting debate . . I see so many companies determined to use social networking to promote their business but they don't consider why they are doing it apart from the fact that they think they should . . .

  12. Really interesting debate . . I see so many companies determined to use social networking to promote their business but they don't consider why they are doing it apart from the fact that they think they should . . .

  13. Hey, should I add people from junior high to my friendlist or just my highschool?

  18. The whole space is still in its infancy. Many of the bigger players are only just coming to grips that social exists. As for getting their corporate heads around how to us it is another matter.

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