Engage your users

In my last post I talked about keeping your online presence fresh and updated: The first step to getting people to visit your site more than just once.  The next step in getting your visitors to really feel drawn to your site/company is to keep them engaged. 

What I mean by "engaged" is to make it a two-sided relationship.  Make the experience one where they are not coming to your site just to "take" from you.  Interact with them.  Make it a unique experience for every visitor.  Give them a voice.

With Web 2.0 and the surge of social media, there is no reason not to have these types of features as part of your online presence.  Set up a Twitter account.  Create a Facebook group.  These are easy enough to do yourself and you can simply link to them from your company's main website. 

One of the oldest, yet still effective, methods for engaging your audience is the use of forums.  Yes, they are old-school, but with the growth of features like OpenID and RSS functionality, they are as relevant as ever in my opinion.  I would say that most if not all of the online tools I use have forums as part of their support system.  They are a great way for you visitors to not only interact with your company, but with each other. 

In this day of the Web and all the anonymity that it offers, forums can be a great way to build relationships that are less anonymous.  For example, I visit many different guitar-related forum communities and have recently made several trades with other members.  There is something about putting your trust in someone you've never met and actually making a successful deal that, in a way, restores good-feelings for other people once again.

Another real-world example of engagement in action is the forum-functionality I recently set up for GraceNet.  Martha Grace Reese is the author of a series of books on Christian evangelism.  The first of these books is called "Unbinding the Gospel", and many churches use this book as a training tool with their congregations.  Last week we launched an online forum called the "Unbinding the Gospel Community" where readers of the book could go and discuss things related to the text and process.  There is also a section where Reese can post news, thoughts, etc, whenever she has something to share - similar to a blog but within the Community.  All the forums have RSS feeds so people can subscribe through their favorite reader application.  This is engagement in an effective manner, and Reese is already seeing information from the Community members that will be useful in her current research project.

So get out there and engage.  Create an interactive relationship with your users.  Listen to them.  Adapt to them.  And most of all, value the things they have to say and offer.

 

PS - I am not a Trekkie.  But I do love Trekkies, the film.

Keeping it fresh

Confession: I am the world's biggest hypocrite for writing about keeping your online presence relevant and up-to-date, but I'm going to do it anyway (see my lack of blog posts for 3 months).  It's one of those "I'm not only the president, I'm also a client"-type problems.

If someone who visited your site last year, last month, or even last week visited again today, would they notice a difference?  If they don't, what impression does that give regarding the success of your business? 

Obviously you might be too busy running a successful business to have time for regular updates, but that still doesn't minimize the importance of timely, relevant content.  Your online presence should give the impression that you've got something good going on. Your presence should be reactive to trends in your industry as well as larger scope items like the economy or culture as a whole.  How does your business fit in with those things? 

Why should consumers and end-users engage with your company when they have less money to spend (these days) or less time to think about it?  Give them a reason through content that makes sense, gets to the point, and is RELEVANT.

The growth of Web 2.0 means nobody has an excuse anymore NOT to keep things fresh:

• Add a blog to your site and push the lead story to your front page.  Even updating it once a week keeps you looking current.
• If you use Twitter, publish your latest status updates to your site.
• If you keep a YouTube or other video channel going, make sure that content is readily accessible from your site.
• Publish weekly specials.
• Create an RSS feed of specials, news, etc. and add it to the home page.
• Even just swapping out graphics on your home page on a regular basis can make a big difference. 

If I visit a site and the content is exactly same time as my previous visit, I am much less likely to return.  My assumption is that it will be the same the next time I return, so why come back?

You'll notice on my site that I follow a few of these rules.  I keep blog headlines on my home page and I swap out the main site graphic on a regular basis.  The portfolio page is updated once in a while with new designs and customer quotes. 

I still have a long ways to go to keep things truly fresh. I shouldn't tell you this, but on my "ABOUT" page I talk about the family dog.  Yeah...we had to put him to sleep about 6 months ago. 

 

How are YOU keeping it fresh?  Give us some more ideas...

Buzzwords: Blogs and RSS

If you've received one of my business cards, you've probably flipped it over and seen the tag-cloud of terms associated with Lift Development's capabilities. I feel it would be a good idea to give a basic explanation of each of the "buzzwords" that I included in case some are unfamiliar to you. Look for several posts about these buzzwords in the coming weeks.

Among these are the terms "Blog" and "RSS." This is a good point for starting out since right now you are reading a blog, which is short for "Web Log." It's essentially a content publishing platform where one or more people can post articles, ideas, rants, or whatever they want.

For example, I use this blog to talk about things relevant to the web field. My wife and I have a blog where we post pictures and stories of our kids for our friends and family to read. As a business, you can use your blog to talk about things relative to your industry, publish special sales you may be having, or publicize a new product or service. You can really use a blog for anything.

The most popular blogging platforms include Google's Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, MovableType, etc. You can choose whichever platform offers an interface to your liking. In the end they all offer the functionality of an RSS feed, which is how people can access your blog without actually visiting your site.

RSS, which stands for "Really Simple Syndication," is a way to push content out to the end-user. Instead of end-users having to visit your website anytime they want to check for new content, they can add your site's RSS feed to their feed reader or web portal of choice. They can even have new posts emailed to them through various RSS-to-email applications.

The advantage of RSS is that each day the user can open up a single tool, such as Google Reader, and view all of their feeds in one place. Instead of having to go to 50 different websites, they can have the feeds from all those sites pulled into their reader.

These tools are all over the web. Anytime you see an orange logo such as the one above, that means an RSS feed is available for subscription. Just copy the hyperlink of the icon and add the address to your reader.

If your organization would like to learn more about blogging and adding RSS feeds to their website, contact Lift Development today. I would be happy to help you set up and design a blog for your target audience.