Two-Way Street

I was looking at a business’s Web site recently.  Out of curiosity, I clicked on the social media icons prominently placed on its home page.  What I found amazed me.  All of the messages on all of the social media talked at whoever might be checking the message.  I did not find any attempt to engage the recipient.  The messages were ads sent via social media. 

Why do I call these ads?  An ad is a preconceived, predesigned, and prewritten communication.  It is created by the business to elicit a particular result.  This doesn’t make it bad, but in social situations ads are inappropriate.  Using an ad on social media is akin to walking into a party and giving a prepared speech.  If you did that, would anyone at the party pay attention to you?  I don’t think so.  Rather than having conversations with individuals at the party, you are talking at the entire group.   

Too many businesspeople talk at people online as a group rather than engaging them in conversation individually.  They are so accustomed to traveling a one-way street of talking at people via traditional advertising on TV, print, radio, and outdoor that they don’t stop to think the Web is different.  They don’t realize that the best use of the Web is as a two-way street.  The Web is an opportunity for conversation and interactivity.  It is a unique place to answer customers’ questions, inform them, and learn more about them.  It offers platforms to develop relationships with customers.    

Remember, social media is social.  Social does not mean directing a canned, prepackaged announcement at recipients.  Social means giving recipients a reason to pay attention because your message may pique their interest, invite their participation, or prompt their response.  They know that your message will likely be something worth their time.     

Social media is not the place for advertising.  Social media is a place for conversation.  It is an opportunity to initiate and continue an exchange of information with others.  Hopefully, these exchanges develop leads, convert prospects to customers, and prompt further purchases from current customers.

Take a look at your social media messages.  Are you talking at an entire group or having a conversation with individuals? 

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The “Under Construction” Mistake

Before I wrote last week’s Insight about Patina stores dropping their online ordering, I checked out the Patina Web site.  I was shocked to find search, shopping cart item count, and checkout buttons still listed across the top of the home page.  This is interesting, I thought.  Why do they have these shopping cart buttons when they discontinued their shopping cart?

Underneath the shopping cart buttons were buttons for at home, women’s, men’s, and kids‘.  I clicked on each of these and received the same result from each click.  I was taken to a page for the button.  Each page had an icon with the words “Under Construction” on it and “Out of stock” printed in red under the icon.

Back at the home page, I scrolled down and discovered a gift card button.  When I clicked on it, I found a long paragraph giving reasons to buy a gift card followed by a short paragraph that due to a new computer system customers could no longer check card balances online.  The third paragraph offered the opportunity to order a gift card.  I tried to do this, and it actually worked.  Down from the gift card button, I saw a wish list button.  Clicking on it, I landed on a page to create an account or log in to a current account.  Where was the wish list?  Down from the wish list button, I spied a shipping/returns button.  The page was very thorough on shipping rates and also answered questions on ordering. 

This confused me.  Aren’t they discontinuing online shopping? I wondered again.

Back at the home page, I noticed this statement at the end of the announcement about dropping online ordering:  “Look for an updated informational site after the New Year.”

Now I was amazed.  Patina management had made a huge mistake using “Under Construction.”  Those two words are the quickest way to turn off customers to your Web site.  Customers think that a business with “Under Construction” on its site either doesn’t care or doesn’t update its site.  Consequently, they leave and do not return. 

Patina management made that mistake even bigger by not following through and changing the Web site by the new year.  I am writing this in mid-January.  Each day after the new year that the site is not changed makes Patina look worse to customers.  Sites with “Under Construction,” “Out-of-Stock,” and parts of a shopping cart that are no longer connected make a very bad impression on customers.

Management wouldn’t allow Patina’s brick and mortar stores to be in this disarray.  Why do they present Patina’s Web site this way?  A web site is a business’s presentation to the world.  Keep it as clean, easy, and convenient for customers to use as an experience at a brick-and-mortar store or a direct contact with staff.

Discover 8 reasons visitors leave a Web site by clicking here.  Listen to a free audio article on the subject from the recent Profitable Marketing Monthly.

This week's marketing trivia challenge is What “Under Construction” Web site have you encountered?  E-mail me your answer.