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I can’t think of another time in history when your reputation was so important. Especially if your success relies on your reputation, as so many businesses and organizations do.

With the explosion of content on the web and then enhanced by social media, your reputation can spread quicker than ever. And the web isn’t necessarily fair – your reputation can spread for good or bad and what’s actually true isn’t a concern.

If your success relies on your reputation, then it’s important that you manage your online reputation with great care.

Be in the know

You should actively monitor your online reputation. Regularly search for your name or business name to see what context it’s being mentioned within. Set up tools and alerts to notify you when your name is mentioned and keep an eye on those at least every few days. For more tools to help you build and monitor your reputation, see Andrea Richeson’s article.

Join the conversation

If you do notice your name mentioned, make your best effort to join the conversation. If someone wrote a bad review about your business, address the review promptly and in the most professional way possible. Never get in an online argument with a customer – it will only hurt your reputation. If someone says something nice about you, make sure you acknowledge the comment. If your name is mentioned in a blog post, comment on the article – it will let people know you’re listening and you care.

Encourage online feedback

If you’re like most professionals, you come in contact with many people on a daily basis, both offline and on. Encourage those that you interact with to mention you online – especially if you’ve provided them with a great experience. Ask clients for reviews, encourage readers to comment on your blog posts, and politely ask for a re-tweet or a Facebook share every now and then (most people say it helps if you don’t overdo it).

Mind your search engine optimization (SEO)

If people are searching for your product or service, chances are they will go to search engines first. This is where your online reputation can really help or hurt your business. If you don’t practice good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on your website, then the comments of other people will show up first. Chances are, you’d rather let potential customers hear what you have to say before they read the comments of others. Follow SEO best practices so your own content isn’t lost in all the noise.

The conclusion to managing your online reputation is to stay involved. Actively monitor mentions of your brand and join in when others talk about you. Improving your online reputation will help your business grow and you’ll have more connections (and potentially more customers) before you know it

It’s easy to look at a complex problem like online reputation management, get intimidated, and put off addressing it until later. My advice: just jump in and realize that you will probably need to fail some, in order to grow. Once you take the initial leap, you’ll find that there are many small tactical issues you can address, as well as larger strategic efforts, both of which have great benefit in the long run.  The real secret to success in managing your online reputation is to above all things, listen to your audience. Then, try out new ways to continue the conversation, learn quickly from your mistakes, and make adjustments based on your experience.

Step Two: Take an Inventory, Set Realistic Goals, & Make a Plan

Take an inventory of what social media efforts you have going on, the resources devoted to them, and then set realistic goals about managing content and conversations.   There’s no need to take on every social media platform at first. Before you decide what direction to go, check out  Carly Smith’s previous Stylesheet article to see examples of effective Social Media Efforts & resources.

After you’ve inventoried your social media efforts, make goals that are practical and match your business objectives. Ask yourself:

• Where are your key customers active online and how many of those social media channels can you feasibly address?
• What’s the timeline for fully participating in these channels?
• How often are the channels monitored and how often is the content updated?

After setting some reasonable goals, it’s time to figure out how to get there. Leonard Bernstein said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”  We all have limited time, so a plan is a way to give some structure to the chaos. Note that the plan shouldn’t ever be considered complete. A good plan is flexible; it keeps up with changes in resources, knowledge, and available staff time and toolset. The plan should include some very clear policies about:

• What the expectations are regarding acceptable tone, language, and topic, both for in-house staff and for the audience.
• Who in your organization is in charge of conversations with your audience.  Social media efforts should be managed with as much care as traditional avenues of communication. The speed with which social media can spread good and bad feedback is shockingly fast. Be sure to place your social media efforts with  people who are well-versed in customer care.
• How to address both positive and negative feedback. Both positive and negative feedback offer an important way to communicate with your audience and let them know you’re listening. This piece of the policy should address not just the approach one takes with language and customer care, but also the speed with which questions and complaints will be addressed.

Step Three: Monitor Your Efforts

There are a lot of complex tools available to monitor your social media efforts, but at first it’s probably best to keep it simple.  See the examples below for free, easy-to-use tools that will get you started:

• Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
  It’s free and easy to use. Simply enter sets of search terms, tweak a few settings, and use a RSS reader like iGoogle to monitor the RSS feeds. You can have the results emailed to you, but managing your inbox might get tricky fast.
• Also, use iGoogle to view the RSSfeeds from your social media channels, and those of your competitors.
• Twitter advanced search – https://twitter.com/#!/search-advanced
  After completing a simple search on Twitter, you’ll see the link for advanced search. The advanced search tool allows you to set up complex searches and save them.
• Facebook Insights – http://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=insights
  A free metrics dashboard from Facebook that helps you analyze trends within user growth and demographics, use of content, and creation of content.

Step Four:  Learn & Iterate

Everyone can benefit from a little survey of best practices, a little research into what other organizations are doing and what lessons they’ve learned.  I’ve included below a few of the places I go for inspiration.

Resources for Further Reading:

• Jeff Levy of the EPA is a smart, funny, down-to-earth leader in the federal government’s social media efforts. Check out his twitter feed, @levyj413, and the EPA’s social media policies at: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/socialmedia.html
• HowTo.gov – http://www.howto.gov/social-media
  Advice and overviews from social media experts in the federal government
• Whole Foods Market, Inc. has very successful global and also store-level social media efforts. They are a great example of using social media channels to provide excellent customer service. See how the engage their audiences; check out their twitter and facebook accounts at: http://wholefoodsmarket.com/twitter and http://wholefoodsmarket.com/facebook/
• Social Media Examiner is a one-stop shop for current, thoughtful information: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com
• The Harvard Business Review Blog Network – http://blogs.hbr.org/samuel/2011/11/social-media-fail-airline-style.html
  The HBR Blog Network offers several short, smart, birds-eye views in to social media best practices, with several excellent examples of organizations doing it well, and some spectacular failures. Search for “social media” on this site to see several though-provoking articles.

The Takeaway

Everyone is learning about social media on the fly. The tools and the approaches are in rapid flux. To succeed in building great conversations with your audience, you’ll need to keep an eye on your primary business goals and key audiences, and remain flexible and adaptable in your approaches.

1. Develop a mobile strategy

If you haven’t done so already, think about your mobile strategy. With more and more people accessing information using their mobile devices, your website may need to play some catch up. Consider developing a mobile version, offering important information to people on the go. Or develop a mobile app to gain some marketing exposure and give your customers a more interactive experience.

For more information about developing a mobile strategy see my recent article Mobile App or Mobile Website?.

2. Set some goals around key metrics

Take a look at your website’s performance over the last year and set some goals for improvement. If you have an analytics package installed, such as Google Analytics, take a look at some key metrics such as visits and conversions and set some goals around increasing these numbers. Consider changes to your website that will positively impact these metrics and make a resolution to go to work on your goals early in the New Year.

3. Consider an SEO makeover

If you haven’t looked at your search engine placement in quite a while, there’s no better time than right now. Consider downloading Google’s SEO Starter Guide (4MB PDF Download) and implementing some of their recommendations on your website. If you’re already following most of their guidelines, consider how you can make improvements to your current strategy to see better results. You may also want to give AdWords or other online advertising networks a try in the New Year. These cost money, so if you have some room in your budget, consider setting some aside to try online advertising if you’ve never done so before. Make it a resolution to have better search engine optimization in the New Year.

4. Upgrade old technology

The New Year is a great time to get your outdated technology up to speed. Give your website a good test in all the latest browsers to make sure it still looks and works great. Adobe BrowserLab is an easy-to-use tool for testing your site across various browsers.

If your website still uses Flash for animation, consider upgrading this as well. Flash isn’t supported on iPhones and iPads, requires a browser plugin to work and typically takes longer to load than other types of content. Nowadays, most animation can be achieved using more universally supported technologies such as HTML 5 canvas and JavaScript. If this is a priority, check out two articles we released late last year: What’s Killing Flash? and 5 Interactive Elements that Don’t Need Flash (But Used To).

5. Build something useful

Finally, consider building something useful next year. Your website is a tool that should help your organization run more efficiently. Think about all the manual, offline tasks that you engage with every day and make plans to automate some of these online. Do you have paper forms that you have employees or clients fill out? Turn these into online forms. Do you receive paper checks for invoices? Consider offering your customers a way to pay online. The possibilities are limitless so consider spending time and money only on applications that will have a true impact on your business.

Check out Andrea Richeson’s article for advice on prioritizing your new year’s resolutions.

Little buck, big bang

You don’t have to mortgage the farm to get started and gather good feedback from your website customers. Usability testing comes in all shapes and sizes, and meaningful data can be generated from a sample size as little as five people.

Ask the right questions

The first step in the testing process is to survey your internal and external customers. Ask them what they like about your site, what they don’t, and what their priorities are. Also ask them some information about their depth of experience on the Web and with your site. After reviewing the feedback and weighing that against your analytics data and business goals, develop a short usability test that asks your customers to complete the top 5 tasks on your site. You can also use the survey data to recruit volunteers for your usability study.

Observe your customers

People often say one thing and do another. This is why online surveys are not enough to guide your site strategy. Watching people walk through real tasks on a site is one of the most powerful things you can do to get in touch with real customer needs and improve your site.

So, after you survey your customers, pick 5 or more people to do a usability test. You can conduct the test in a test lab, in your office, or online. No matter the environment, make sure that you sit through the test with the volunteer, watch how they navigate your site, and take notes about their actions and their comments. At the end of the test, ask for written feedback about the tasks and the testing.

Review competitor sites

With your customers’ feedback in mind, review your competitors’ websites. There is always insight to be gained by seeing how other sites succeed or fail to address common problems.

Guide your web strategy with usability data

The survey responses combined with usability testing notes and competitor data will uncover common challenges that you should address in the coming year. Even better, with usability data behind you, you can be sure that you’re using resources wisely and tackling the most crucial issues first.

The New Year is right around the corner and there’s not a better time to upgrade your online marketing than right now! If you do so, 2012 may just be your best year yet. Happy holidays and we’ll see you next year!

What’s the difference? How do we decide? What costs are involved in each strategy? Read on and I’ll try to answer those questions for you.

What do you mean by “the mobile Web”?

When I say “the mobile Web” I’m talking about the World Wide Web as it appears on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). The mobile Web can take the form of a mobile app, a mobile website or a regular website that is displayed on a mobile device. It’s important because users interact with the mobile Web differently than they interact with the regular Web (the one on your full-size computer). On the mobile Web, visitors hang around for a shorter amount of time, view content on a much smaller screen, don’t use a standard mouse or keyboard and are typically interested only in things they need when on the go.

You need to know what the mobile Web is because, as someone who runs a website, you need to decide if catering to mobile users is a wise investment for your organization.

If you decide that building content specifically formatted for mobile devices is the way to go be prepared to decide if you want to build a mobile app, a mobile website or both. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages and the choice should be made carefully.

Building a mobile app

Delivering your content to users by way of mobile app has several advantages. Apps interact with the hardware and software of the device. So if you need to allow the user to do something that will require a camera or their smartphone’s GPS, then developing an app is the way to go. Apps also allow full control over the user interface including custom navigation controls and application options. This can be an advantage if you don’t mind building this yourself or a disadvantage if what you need done could be accomplished within a browser anyway. Finally, offering a mobile app may increase your exposure. Not only can users find out about your content from the web but they can also learn about you from the place where apps are acquired (the AppStore, the Android Market, etc.).

For all the advantages that offering a mobile app has, there are plenty of disadvantages that should be considered carefully. An app is a piece of software that must be downloaded and installed by the user. That right there is a significant barrier between the user and your content. In fact, some research by Pinch Media shows that less than 5% of downloaded apps continue to be used 20 days after being downloaded. Apps are also not compatible with mobile devices running different operating systems. This means that, if you want to offer your app to as many users as possible, you have to build a version for the iOS (iPhone and iPad), Google Android, Palm, Blackberry, etc. As you can see, offering a cross-platform app can be very expensive and time consuming.

Building a mobile website

Offering your content by way of a mobile website is another option you have available. In this method, instead of building an app that users must download, you’re delivering your content using a mobile-friendly version of your website, through the web browser built into the device. This method also has its advantages and disadvantages.

First of all, users don’t have to think much about how they access your content. If developed correctly, users will visit your website and will be presented with a version formatted for their mobile device. You also keep the content up to date, just like you do for content on your regular website, and the user never has to install an update to get the latest version. A mobile website can also be built to be platform independent. This means that an iPhone user will see the same content as a Blackberry user without you having to create different versions. As long as the phone they are using has a web browser, your content can be viewed across any mobile device.

The disadvantages of a mobile website are covered by the advantages of a mobile app. You’ll lose some exposure because your content can only be found within a browser and won’t be located in the AppStore or Android Market. It’s also more difficult or impossible to get a mobile website to interact with features of the mobile device (such as the camera, address book, etc.).

So which one do I build?

Deciding between a mobile app and a mobile website would be an easy choice if you had all the money and time in the world. In this case, my recommendation would be to do both. However, if you’re like the rest of us, deciding which way to go depends on many factors. First, consider the type of content you’re delivering. If your content must interact with the device such as use information from the camera or pinpoint a location using GPS, then develop an app that allows for this functionality. However, if the content you are delivering is informative and less interactive, then a mobile website could suit you just fine. Also, consider your target audience. Will the people you’re trying to reach be more willing to download an app or just visit your website on their smartphone? The answer will tell you which one to develop.

Whatever you decide, delivering your content to the mobile web is an important step in reaching a wider audience. For more information on how to design for the mobile web, check out Jeff McAllister’s article.

One of today’s design challenges is taking massive amounts of Web content and creating a mobile experience, which tells a similar story in a much smaller book.

The basics

Without getting too technical, websites are typically designed with a size of 960 pixels wide for the main viewing area. The average size for mobile phones is around 360 pixels wide. Right off the bat, the viewing area has been reduced by almost 2/3. In the design-world, this means every pixel counts and any content that gets included needs to serve a purpose. There is no room for clutter.

Users viewing content on a mobile device don’t want to spend time scaling, swiping, pinching or digging to find the content they want. Instead of large, fascinating header graphics, we now showcase visual design by elegant icons and smart, intuitive buttons.

As Nick Weynand mentioned in his article, every website owner’s needs vary and whether an actual mobile app is built or a mobile version of the website, keeping everything straight- forward and at your fingertips (literally) is essential.

Shape up

The best start to publishing mobile content is trimming the fat. Start by stripping out any and all unnecessary items. Photographs that aren’t part of supporting copy can more than likely be removed. Large gradients and heavy shadowing can eat up file size and should be kept to a minimum. If graphics were used for section headers or titles, consider making these text-based with a web-friendly font.

Simplify

Once the excess weight has been removed, it’s time to evaluate your navigation. While drop-downs and sub-menus might work well on a website, their functionality might not be ideal in a mobile environment. Consolidating and removing sections of your website will make for a more intuitive user experience. Think about what information is a must for your company and make sure it’s easy to find.

Think big

Although the display is considerably smaller on a mobile device, it doesn’t necessarily mean designs need to shrink. In fact, larger, easy to read icons and buttons work best. The user will be interacting with the screen so hotspots should be large enough for a finger to tap and enough “open” space around them so other elements aren’t accidentally activated. Mouse roll-over states may be ignored for mobile but active states for navigation items are a good idea so it’s always intuitive for the user to know where they are.

Use large, legible fonts and if links are to be used within the body of the pages, make sure the contrast is great enough to distinguish them from regular copy. Vertical scrolling is acceptable however horizontal scrolling should be avoided.

Results

Designing content for the mobile web is an exciting, new, innovation in the interactive world. Like any new design environment, there’s a learning curve and plenty of trial and error to take place. If an effort is made to streamline the content, simplify navigation and design with a small canvas in mind, the results will yield an excellent user experience.

So what does this mean for today’s business? It isn’t a matter of creating a Twitter account and tweeting out a few of your latest coupons. It means finding your customers, finding people in your industry, finding people in your community; and actively communicating with them. Find out what they care about, what they think about others in your industry (positive and negative), and what they want to get out of the time they invest in your company.

Gary Vaynerchuk, author of the famed books Crush It! and The Thank You Economy, said it best: “If your organization’s intentions transcend the mere act of selling a product or service, and it is brave enough to expose its heart and soul, people will respond. They will connect. They will like you. They will talk. They will buy” (The Thank You Economy, pg 8-9).

Going above and beyond for your clients will go a long way. They will remember those little things that you do for them, and it will give you a competitive edge; both offline and online, on your website and on social media outlets.

“Competitors are bigger? Outcare them. They’re cheaper? Outcare them. They’ve got celebrity status and you don’t? Outcare them. Social media gives you the tools to touch your consumer and create an emotion where before there might not have even been one. It doesn’t matter if you’re not small or cool or sexy – people can get pumped up about the craziest stuff” (Vaynerchuk, The Thank You Economy, pg 84).

Andrea Richeson, our User Experience Director, has written a great article on how good customer service can be achieved through good website architecture and design. As a seque into Andrea’s article, here is a great clip from a March 2011 interview with Gary Vaynerchuck, in which he discusses the three most powerful strategies for getting more visitors to your site:

Throughout the strategy, site architecture, visual design, and technical implementation phases of a project, we work to provide three things: great content, an effortless experience, and open communication.  Along the way, we also constantly focus on the customer by asking Why? What? and How? Why is the customer visiting this site or page, what do they want and need to accomplish, and how can we meet and exceed their needs, while also addressing our business goals?

Tips for creating a great customer experience

Great Content

Sites will fail if they don’t meet the customer’s need for content. So ask yourself how you can meet this need, and outshine your competitors by being the most-trusted expert in your area.

Define the areas of content you want to and should provide, then recruit subject matter experts from across the organization to contribute their knowledge to the content.

Write in a consistent voice: Establish policies and guidelines for writing for the web that address tone, word choice, reading level, grammar, and branding.

Make it work in context: Is your customer on a computer with the newest browser? A tablet on the couch? A smart phone in the car? A device that reads your content aloud? Offer content that is tailored to each environment, by adjusting the functionality, site navigation, the volume of content, and the layout of content.

Keep it timely: Commit to keeping your content up-to-date.

An Effortless Experience

Information design, visual design, and coding should work together to provide a smooth, frictionless, effortless experience for the customer. When done well, functionality is intuitive and the design is largely invisible. The site gets out of the way of the visitor.

Anticipate customer needs: Walk through the site architecture and look for opportunities to cross-promote tools, products, services and content. Offer a variety of ways for the customer to print, save, share, and reuse your content. Provide ways to both browse and search for site content.

Respect customer preferences: do not override browser preferences, always allow opt-out for subscriptions, and always keep customer data secure.

Keep it simple and focused: Let the content and the functionality drive design and coding, and avoid unnecessary content, visual design, and technological tricks. Information architecture, visual design, and technology should work together to support business goals and customer tasks.

Test your assumptions: Do walk-throughs of site tasks and functionality to make sure that the experience you are creating is intentional. Usability testing, with in-house staff and/or external customers, will help you gain valuable insight about how well your site works and meets the needs of your customers.

Open Communication

People enjoy connecting with other people. Use your online environment to connect to your customers directly.

Foster discussion: use a variety of social media, survey tools, and traditional contact forms to both market your organization and to gather feedback.

Be consistent: Address both praise and criticism immediately and see both as a way to improve your customer service.

Be responsive: Commit to regular upkeep and monitoring of your communication tools. And remember that site statistics are a very valuable form of customer communication. Keep an eye on your site statistics, so that you know what barriers to remove and what great content you should promote.

Build Trust and Credibility Through Iterative Design

Designing for the online experience is a moving target. Business and customer goals change. Every day, new technologies come out and we learn more about how to make sites more useful and usable.  Don’t wait for large redesign projects to make changes to your site. Use the feedback you get from your customers about content, functionality, and communication to constantly tweak, test, and improve the site and your customer’s experience.

For a look at the importance of customer service in the digital age, check out Carly’s article.

Responsive design is the principal that one design can be created to accommodate many different mediums. It’s not a new concept and it isn’t limited to web design. Rather, it stems from a concept called “responsive architecture.” Responsive architecture is driving some of the most modern building designs being created today. It’s the concept that buildings should adapt to various spaces and the people using them. You can see responsive architecture in buildings that change shape, walls that flex and art installations that move. There aren’t that many examples in the real world yet, but there will be.

Responsive design extends this philosophy to the web. It’s the idea that web designers can create websites that adapt automatically to the devices they are being viewed on. For example, one coded home page can be viewed one way on a desktop computer and another way on a smart phone. Images and shapes flex and change size to allow for proper display on the medium of choice. Without responsive design, a separate website would need to be created for each device. It’s a revolutionary idea that’s sure to change (and simplify) the landscape of web design as more devices are introduced in the future.

Several sources say that mobile browsing is predicted to outpace desktop browsing in just a few years. This combined with many new types of devices coming on the market, including ones we haven’t even thought of yet, means that responsive design will have a significant place in web development for years to come.

Want more information on implementing responsive design into your next project? See Andrea Richeson’s article about responsive strategy.

So, when determining what technology tools to implement, be sure to ask: who is my audience, how are they accessing my site content, why are they accessing my site content, and in what context are they accessing the site?

To illustrate why these questions are important, imagine that you are in the process of buying a car. At first, you may use multiple websites to do cross-comparisons on pricing, features, specifications, and reviews. You may be watching videos, testing out various configurations and colors, and doing calculations to determine the monthly payment. For these tasks, you’ll want a large screen, keyboard access, and decent bandwidth and load time. Contrast those needs with what you want while driving to the dealership to buy the car. At that point you’re on your smart phone, you’re lost, and you need a map, directions, and a phone number, all easily accessible through a touch screen interface.  So, the audience is the same, but the goals, tasks, platform, and context have changed.

With responsive design, we can very efficiently re-flow content across a variety of screen sizes. What responsive design cannot do on its own is serve up very different content, designed for the audiences’ changing goals, tasks, and context. Responsive design can make the translation from 24-inch monitor to tablet to smart phone much more effective. But, depending on your audience, their goals, tasks, and context, responsive design is not a replacement for platform-specific development, such as a mobile site or a tablet site.

So, how is it that you determine your audience’s goals, tasks, and content? At first, you’ll want to make some high-level assumptions about the audience. Then, you’ll want to test out those assumptions in real-life. Talk to your customer support people, they know a lot about what your audience needs. Also, ask your audience. Through surveys, focus groups, and interviews, you can learn a lot about how your audience interacts with your site. Finally, don’t believe what people say — do some real-world usability testing to watch how people interact with your site.

Once you have a clear idea about what your customers really want and use, then you can effectively implement the responsive technology tools and site strategy for the job at hand.

For an introduction to responsive design, check out Nick’s article.