5. StepFree | Social media consulting Why be engaging? Get Attention !! 1 Photo by : clearly ambiguous
6. StepFree | Social media consulting Keep them coming / Loyalty Photo by : indichick7 2
7. StepFree | Social media consulting “ if a site is made in a way that users run away right away, then chances are that we might not be recommending it as much as other sites that users like." SEO 3
8. StepFree | Social media consulting Eventualy: More members or revenues! Photos by: AMagill
9. StepFree | Social media consulting How to be engaging ? Value! Photos by: Wandering Magpie
10. StepFree | Social media consulting Design Usability Content Interactivity Measurements How to be engaging ? A B C D E
11. StepFree | Social media consulting ‘ Keep the design free of clutter’ A Design W3C Photo by: i-marco
12. StepFree | Social media consulting Gives you more control of their behaviour! Ads No white Useless images Lot of text
13. StepFree | Social media consulting Source: www.useit.com ‘ Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process’.
14. StepFree | Social media consulting B Usability ‘ Use’ = ability to do things = use and usefulness ‘ Ability’
19. StepFree | Social media consulting Quality, interesting Give away content Whitepapers, manuals etc. schould we do this? Keep them coming Storytelling C Content 1 2 3 4
28. StepFree | Social media consulting Networking None of you memberorganizations has a REAL Social network tool….how great would it be if FIP integrated that for all of you? The base is already there!
52. StepFree | Social media consulting No real communities? Photo: Luc Legay
53. StepFree | Social media consulting Conclusions Just little engagement Lot of terrain to win! Design (W3C) Usability Start with the base: design /usability, than interactivity!
60. FIP : ‘Building an online Discussion Forum on the FIP Website’
Hinweis der Redaktion
Welcome back guys, how was your lunch? This part of the workshop is going to be about engaging websites. We are going to talk about what it is, why you should be engaging, how you can be engaging and we will also discuss some examples. But first I would like to discuss with you the presentations we had right before the lunch.
Ok, back to the theory….wat are engaging websites. Well, what is it?
Yes, all of you have good answers and points. Engaging websites are websites that are interactive, because the visitor can react and interact with your organisation. Engaging websites are also captivating. They are so interesting that you are captured by them An engaging website is convenient for the visitor, so Its got to be dummy proof, like you see on this book. Of course the engaging website has to be interesting. Just like the use of social media, you should be adding value to the market. And the last but very important factor of a engaging website is usability. The website must be usable for the visitor, technically as well as contentwise
Actualy, an angaging website is all about the repeat traffic. The more peoples return to your site, the more engaging your website will be. Its of course not all about repeattraffic, also about time spend on the site for instance, but repeattraffic is the best proof of a engaging website.
Why be engaging you will ask. Well, I have about 4 reasons for that: The first one is getting attention. I get your attention with this picture…don’t I? Engaging websites get far more attention than normal static sites.
The second reason is keeping them coming…..make them loyal. If your website is engaging, interesting and the visitors return to the site (repeatvisits), than they will be much more loyal to your organization than if the website is not engaging. Loyalty was also important with the use of social media as wel have seen before. Loyalty is gold for memberorganisations.
The third reason is also very important…..Google! Google rewards engaging websites, so you better become engaging because google is king…..right? An high person from Google once said: “if a site is made in a way that users run away right away, then chances are that we might not be recommending it as much as other sites that users like." In other words…if you are not engaging, we will not mention you. Kind of bolt conclusion..but very much thruth.
And of course….what is the reason of this all. Revenues and members naturelly! That’s why we have our website in the first place, that will always be the marketing and communication goal.
Now…an important question. We now know engaging is a must, but how can we actually be engaging? The biggest part in being engaging is very simple but in the same time very difficult, be valueable. If you add value to the market, your customer will be engaged! But only value is NOT enough anymore…sadly!
There are a few rules you will have to meet to be an engaging website that works. First you got to have a good modern design. Your site also has to be usability friendly (ow, and don’t panic, I will explain them all in a while). You got to have valuable content. The site must have possibilities to be interactive. You should measure the results!
Design is the first part in which you can go wrong. The design must be free of clutter! The site must be W3C proof…which means it lives up to the standards designed in the W3C standard. Like the picture already sais….sometimes the best design is nu design at all. A design should be simple, clean and usable.
Which means that: there should be no useless images that attract to much attention away from important parts The should be No or minimun ads. If you use free tools there will always be some advertising, but keep it at a minimum! Lot of websites are very colourfull and have a lot of text or pictures…sometimes even as background. This is terrible for the readability. A website must have a lot of white space in it. Like we just said: sometimes the best design is no design at all. Lot of text is not readable friendly…..bladiebla Preparing yourself for al this things gives you more control over the behaviour of your visitors. So, don’t do the thngs we just discussed…don’t do ads, don’t do lot of text and don’t use useless images.
The next is Usability: What is it? Bladiebla. Usability, like you can see, is all about the ease of use of a website.
If you look at the words, you can allready see what the meaning is. Use stand for use and usefulness, ability stands for the ability to do things at the site.
The quality components withing usability are as follows: Peoples should be able to learn on your site, but the site itself should also be easy to learn The site should be real efficient in content and design. Nu useless things, efficiency is the winner. Peoples should memorate the content of your site, and also the way the site navigates. The next time they will experience less problems visiting you. There may not be errors in the site. 404 pages are showing up far to often, or internal or external links that are dead. Really keep controling errors on your site, and build an original 404 page. The most important in my opinion howver, is the visitor satisfaction!
So, usability is all about the actual usefullnes and ease of use of your website…don’t make sites that are not logical..you don’t do that with your services or products as well!
In other words…always try to place yourself on the place of a very stupid dumb visitor, or a visitor with not very much internetexperience. Work with the famous KISS principle! Keep ik simple, supid….or Keep it stupid simple.
A very nice startup and website form the netherslands that can help you with your usability is Usabilla. This program lays a layer over your webdesign and lets visitors/panelmembers klick on the places the like and undertstand the best in relation to the places the dislike or think are difficult to understand. This gives you beautiful maps on which you can base the future usability changes.
The third way to be engaging Is through content. The content of your site should be interesting and of high quality. The main problem for a lot of organisations is howver that this good content must be available for free, because peoples don’t pay for content anymore like with newspapers. You can give away manuals, whitepapers, blogs etc. Radiohead for instance was the first band to give away a single in Mp3 for free. The valuable content also makes people come back. With my on weblog I can see that on the days I post no article, the visits are muh lower. In other words…content keeps peoples coming. Digital media also give you an unbelieveble chance to do things with storytelling. Share the story behind your brand, company and products.
Interactivity is definitely just as important as the other factors, and contains most of the social media tools we discussed earlier. I’m going to show you something about,…..rijtje afgaan.
Measure….measure…measure. I cant repeat it enouhg. Measuring becomes more and more vital in online marketing. It gives you an unique opportunity to see what peoples are doing on your site, how long they stay etc. etc. In traditional marketing this is impossible in almost every occasion.
Are there no real communities around your memberorganizations? Well, of course there are, but not as online as I hoped for. Your communities could be so much more active if they had real online places.