jon pape dot com

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Social media planning and strategies are a lot more complex and entangled than any other advertising channel available to marketers.  It seems like for every example of a strategy that works, there are 10 strategies that fail.  It seems that companies are stuck using one off tactics on social media networks and have no integrated strategy to boost interest through overlapping and consistent campaigns.

• Originally (about 2 years ago), as a SEM strategist, most of the literature available recommended using social media outlets as an extension of directories and social bookmarking sites.  Marketers would submit URLs to increase the number of in-bound links and the quality score/visibility of target URLs in search engines.
• As a programmer and RSS proponent, social media outlets were seen as a way to aggregate and spread content in an automated fashion using a variety of social marketing tools.  Additionally, it is not uncommon to see individuals using social marketing outlets as a way to network inanimate objects, appliances, and applications to receive continuous updates.

Now, if marketers really want to use social media the way social media developers envisioned the medium being used, marketers must be much more strategic and plan campaigns to be much more comprehensive than one off campaigns.  Your company isn’t creating print pieces.  A Facebook campaign simply cannot be cobbled together to cover a two month period focusing on back to school.  Social media is a companies voice that must be sustainable and consistent.  It is cliche to say social media is a conversation with customers.  More accurately, if a business as an authentic, consistent voice it is more likely that the customer will continue to listen.

Above is a very basic social media strategy.  The illustration lacks a lot of glitz and glamor but it includes something most social media planning lacks, an overall strategy.

What is your company trying to tell the consumers?  Social networks are just the vehicles of this message.  Will consumers find your companies message interesting or entertaining?  Is your social media strategy limited to profile pages with no friends or sweepstakes and prizes?  Does your company ask for user videos but has no submissions? Then your company (and your agency) many have a problem.

If the social media strategy for your organization is similar to the diagram below, there is a planning problem.

What is your company trying to tell consumers about yourself? If the message is that you have “free shipping from now till Christmas” or that “this is your chance to win $10,000 by entering our contest now” then expect to fail.

Focus on your companies passions and plan a strategy that lasts for more then six months and your company may have a chance.  If customers find your social “voice” interesting or entertaining, than you may have a win.

Otherwise, you can build something as awesome and creative as the Whopper Sacrifice but marketing that genius doesn’t happen every day.

These are my predictions for retailer websites in the next 5 years.  They are based on conversion research, customer interaction, and successful advertising metrics.  Some of the “enhancements” are already being adopted by successful retailers but I’m sure more merchants will adopt these 4 user interface design and web development improvements.

1) Merchants will figure out that top navigation and side navigation are not important and emphasize the search tool on websites.

Amazon Search Bar

Customers don’t care about most merchants.  Customers don’t care about a merchants product selection.  Internet users do not “browse” stores.   The goal is to make it as easy as possible for the customer to find what they are looking and for the customer to have an easy, convenient customer experience.

• Must consumers start looking for a product on Google because category taxonomy is misleading or confusing or they don’t know what they are looking for.
• Amazon’s search bar stretches the entire length of the page.
• Once you reach the Amazon category page, the side navigation disappears (helps with SEO).
• Amazon lists deals where the side navigation used to be.

Prediction:  Most navigation will disappear and the search will be emphasized even more.

Future web sites will eliminate top and side navigation.

2)  Everything is miscellaneous. Get rid of categories and add tags.

Indentical Products in Multiple Categories.

Categories create a barrier for customers and merchants. Above is a picture of the search results from Meijer.com.  If the user searches for GPS, merchants have placed the product in multiple categories across the site creating a bewildering array of choices for the customer.  Decision paralysis ensues and overall conversion suffers.

Below are a list of some additional problems.

• Categories are a human creation and are limited by person, organization, & regional perception.
• Categories are hard to scale.
• Categories can be misleading.
• Categories create duplicate content (a SEO no-no).
• Categories require constant maintenance.
• Niche products are often squeezed into an irrelevant category (craft supplies in the home site section).
• Niche product categorization can create can create problems when products are sent out in data feeds or promo codes are issued.  If you have a site wide promotion that excludes electronics but GPS units are also in a season category, should merchants exclude that category?
• Other organizations such as affiliates or comparison shopping engines may categorize products differently.
• Customers may not be able to find what they are looking for.  Should garage storage be categorized in the home category or the outdoor category?

Prediction:  Tag products with the labels used in categorization and let the user and the web site search categorize products for you.

Some searches will still cause problems. If the user searches for “irons”, that search will return “golf irons”, “steam irons”, and “hair irons”.  Most Internet users are knowledgeable enough now to know how to refine a search to see exactly what they want.  Additionally, a series of related searches or dynamic search suggestion can be added to help users.

Bing Dynamic Search Selection.

Merchants wouldn’t have to worry about miscategorizing products, duplicate content, or development and design of navigation when adding or deleting products.  Additionally, web sites would essentially be flat and SEO would be improved.

3) More Retailer Websites will Adopt Fluid Layouts.

Smashing Magazine Article About Fluid layouts

In 2007, an unnamed merchant launches their retail website.  Templates are developed using a fixed layout.  CSS is developed for these templates.  Template content blocks are developed for the CMS that handles images, video, and html.  Everything is designed for an average browser width of 800px.  Two years later, the average customer browser width  is 1050px.  In 5 years, the average customer browser width is going to be over 1600px (just a guess) and half the traffic will be coming from mobile devises.  Eventually, this merchant will have to redo everything to accommodate changing user preferences and changes in technology.

Amazon is the only major retailer using a fluid layout.

Prediction: To optimize conversions and the user experience, merchants are going to have to figure out how to utilize the area  provided for a wide variety of user browsers.

• The most important element to focus on is product images.
• Use a variety of CSS styles for different browsers.
• Imagine scaling up and down.

Don’t create a separate mobile sites or niche sites for a website.  It is bad for SEO.  Besides, eventually people are going to be accessing the web from TVs, appliances (some refrigerators have web browsers now), cars, and tablet-like devises.  Build scalability and flexibility into your website design so the content/structure can remain the same indefinitely with only slight design changes.

Amazon.com recently announced the release of their new browser plug-in that acts as a universal wishlist.  While this isn’t an in depth analysis of the plug-in, I thought the user UI used to explain how to install the plug-in was worth mentioning.  While most early-adapters are very familiar to browser plug-ins, average users will find plug-ins confusing to install.

Amazon uses a simple process to make installation of their browser plug-in easy for users to understand. Instead of supplying a number of instructions for all the browsers that can use the new plug-in, Amazon uses a simple java script code to read what browser the viewer is using and then just display the instructions for that browser.

Brilliant customer service and use of technology.

Firefox Instructions

Internet Explorer Instructions