Website Management Responsibilities

Should large companies with dozens of departments, divisions or units allow employees within those separate entities to be in charge of their own sections of the corporate internet or intranet? It’s actually one of the tougher questions, only because there are legitimate pros and cons on both sides of the issue.

Pro: No one knows a department as well as the people who live inside that department.

Pro: Departmental employees know better than anyone else when important changes need to be made to their particular web page.

Pro: If a department has a certain ‘personality’ that makes it special and different, who better to communicate that than the people who give it that personality?

Con: Not every department, division or unit has a writer skilled enough to write appropriate web copy. Every page of every corporate site must be concise, effective and error-free.

Con: Departmental employees may just be too busy to take the time necessary to make web page changes and modifications. That’s not in their job descriptions—and they may even come to resent the responsibility.

Con: Just because a department has a personality, it doesn’t mean that personality should be part of the corporate site. There is often much more value in a corporate site having a singular, professional voice.

Of course, many large companies have a professional copywriter on board who is skilled at maximizing every department’s web page while maintaining cohesion on the overall corporate site. Other companies hire a full-service marketing communications firm that has expert writers, designers and project managers on staff to do it for them. After all, the larger the company, the more pros and cons need to be weighed.

Effective Website Management

Almost every company has a website today. In fact, if a company doesn’t have a website, many potential customers wonder why it is so behind the times and may even consider passing them up in favor of a more contemporary firm—one that realizes we’re living in the Twenty-First century.

And then, of course, there are those companies that have a website simply because they have to have a website—but do very little to maintain or update it. Okay, so they’re in the Twenty-First Century—but wish they weren’t. As much as they may like to, they can’t have it both ways.

Sometimes the problem is that these leaders don’t know the first thing about websites and don’t want to spend the funds necessary to have someone on staff who does. Other times it’s because they haven’t taken the time to read up on the value of effective website marketing.

What company leaders need to realize is that this new century is populated by many marketing communications firms that know exactly what to do when a website isn’t doing its job. And you know what? That way, these same leaders can have it both ways.

When do you know you need a new website or need to completely update the one you’ve got?

  • When you can’t remember the last time anyone worked on it.
  • When you look at it and realize that it no longer accurately reflects your brand.
  • When you check with your customers and discover that your site long ago stopped being useful to them.
  • When no one knows it exists!

Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to complimentary consultation on your marketing, public relations, partnership, special events, and social media needs kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.

Social Media Management

Based on what’s going on out there, many companies are deciding to use social media to promote their businesses. They take a giant leap to get a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other platforms—and then, inexplicably, forget about it. They don’t take the time to add new posts and news to their pages. Many experts say that it’s better to have no social media business page at all if you’re going to end up having one that’s essentially empty.

If you’re going to make the move to social media marketing, before you start:

  • Discuss with your team whether or not you’ll have enough content and ideas to update it at least every few days.
  • Study some of the business sites out there analogous to yours and see what attracts the most attention (likes, comments, etc.)
  • Determine who in your organization can adequately devote several hours a week to the effort, or, in lieu of that, commit to hiring a social media expert or marketing firm to do it for you.
  • Don’t let up. Keep it going. It’s still a relatively new marketing method with a lot of unknowns—but what is known is that inactivity leads to disinterest.

Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to complimentary consultation on your marketing, public relations, partnership, special events, and social media needs kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.

 

Image Marketing Shares Their Blogging Tips

Our blog is always about image marketing and marketing communications — not necessarily about blogs themselves. But since many companies now use blogs as part of their marketing efforts (like we do), a blog about blogs isn’t totally out of the question.

Many blogs aren’t nearly as successful as they should be for one of three reasons—and often all three at the same time.

  • They’re too wordy
  • They’re not well written
  • They’re unfocused (or have more than one focus)

Pick one topic to write about. Stick to it. Get to the point right away. State your objective or share your observations in as few words as possible.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have an aside or two or stick in a quip or two. But remember that most people are stressed to the max and have little time or patience for too many asides or quips that don’t help them in one way or another right off the bat.

Speaking of ‘right off the bat,’ avoid clichés whenever possible. Of course, clichés become clichés because they are expressive and meaningful. So go ahead and use a few if you’d like. Just don’t use so many in one blog that it seems like they’re raining down like cats and dogs.

Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to complimentary consultation on your marketing, public relations, partnership, special events, and social media needs kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.

The Importance of Effective Writing

The Importance of Effective Writing

The promotional merit of good, effective writing should never be underestimated. Whatever is written on behalf of products, services and projects can end up as archival material that represents a company for years to come. That includes websites, brochures, e-newsletters, advertorials, even letters, memos and emails. In today’s digital world, anything can show up anywhere and last almost forever. If a prospective customer sees something that’s terribly written, it doesn’t help when you say, “Oh, we were so busy that day that we had to ask someone in Accounting to write it.”

Rambling, boring, ostentations or grammatically challenged writing can easily come back to haunt businesses. Good writing from the start pays off. Here are some tips:

  • Reread everything several times before deeming it final—at least once for the sole purpose of eliminating as many words as possible.
  • Simple words and phrases are always better than those that try to impress.
  • Know your audience. Realize they are as stressed as you and will find it easy to dismiss what they read if it doesn’t grab them right away.
  • Seek out people in the company with a proven facility for good writing. They may appreciate being asked to help (part of your employee recognition efforts). Consider compensating them for their efforts.
  • Hire a professional. There are plenty of marketing communications firms that, at cost-effective pricing, can make the difference between writing that works and writing that can hurt.

Kate Sirignano, founder of Image Marketing Consultants, invites you to complimentary consultation on your marketing, public relations, partnership, special events, and social media needs kate@imagemarketingconsultants.com, 203-404-4868.