RyanShell.com

Marketing, public relations, social media... and a little of this and that.

Websites: The Game has Changed

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Let’s take a minute and talk about websites and how the game has changed.

Years ago when I had my first website it was built using html and using an expensive program such as Dreamweaver was my only way to make edits. During this same time period I think many people relied heavily on their web vendor to do even the simplest of edits – and that’s still true for some today.

In my opinion, the concept of not being able to easily make edits to your website, when you want to, has drastically changed. We live in a world of “I want it now,” and waiting hours/days to have a change implemented is not widely acceptable.

When you are choosing a designer it’s important to know that they can create a clean looking site, but you also need to know what content management system (CMS) is being used. In simple terms, it’s the tool you’ll use to make website updates.

There are some really horrible tools that exist and I really don’t want you getting stuck with one of them. Make sure you are able to give the suggested CMS a test drive before making any type of commitment. At the very least, do this for your own sanity.

WordPress

WordPress has become one of the top blogging platforms around, which has also proved to be somewhat of a negative. The negative is that the word “blog,” has remotely blinded some from realizing that it can be used for more than just a blog and is an incredibly powerful, and easy to use CMS.

If you’re thinking, “But I don’t want my site to look like a blog,” that’s perfectly understandable. It doesn’t have to. For instance, take a moment and look at the homepage for my site – it doesn’t look like a typical blog layout does it? My site was built using WordPress.

WordPress might not be a solution for every website need that comes up, but I do suggest you at least give it some thought.

Trust the Data

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One thing that’s great about marketers is that many of us have very strong opinions. And that’s great… but there are times where we need to stop, look at the numbers (research) and analyze what they are saying.

I’ve encountered a host of situations over the years where someone has said, “people love it,” or something of that nature about a marketing tool being utilized. Then, when I look at the numbers it is clear that “people” don’t love it, or that there is  opportunity for improvement.

Being emotionally excited about something is great, but that single factor can sometimes cloud ones judgment… and it happens to the best of us, which is why looking at the data is so important.

Oh, and there’s no doubt about it. Sometimes the numbers will go against your gut and it will be extremely hard to force yourself to follow their lead.

For example, when I worked in radio we had callout research on music that we played and I was typically pretty good at picking the hits. On occasion I’d miss the mark and a song I wasn’t huge on would come back with fantastic results. My gut feeling of course was that it shouldn’t be a power song (played a lot), but the research said otherwise and was typically on point.

Sure there will be times that results are skewed, but if over time you are seeing the same trend… you should likely trust the data and make the appropriate changes – or go in a completely different direction.

HootSuite Change Makes it Easier to Manage Conversations

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HootSuite is one of the many programs you can use to access multiple social media accounts, and is something I’ve used for a while now.

I first started using it to manage my personal Twitter account, but have since implemented multiple other Facebook and Twitter accounts. And honestly, I had used Twitter.com for so long that I really disliked HootSuite at first – it was a bit overwhelming, but the layout (and features) eventually grew on me.

They’ve (HootSuite) recently made a change that I think is very helpful to businesses that have more than one person managing a Twitter account. Take a moment and click the image the image below to enlarge it.

In the column on the right you should notice a blue box around one of the tweets that says “Ryan Shell responded to this.” To my knowledge this is a new feature – or at least it simply hasn’t been working for me.

So why is this useful? Previously, there was no clear way to track what @ replies had been responded to and who sent the response. That’s changed now and HootSuite has, in my opinion, drastically helped multiple-user accounts manage the conversation process a bit better.

Three ways Social Media Impacted my life last Week

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Allow me to share three good examples of how Twitter (social media) impacted my social/business life last week:

  1. While at a conference in Lansing, MI last week a fellow attendee followed me on Twitter which led to a great new connection and lots of fun conversation with she and a colleague at dinner.
  2. I met several top tier reporters – and this isn’t to simply pitch them. They talk about things I care about and we can have good conversations. If I ever have a story idea they might like I’ll share… but that isn’t priority number one.
  3. I met one of the people in this New York Times story (Didn’t know about the story prior to connecting) and got acquainted over drinks (which means I had water) at Puck Fair.

Has social media made an impact on your life lately? If so, how?