Wayne English, Coventry Social Networking Expert | Quality content is king

Editor’s Note: A member of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, English is the author of “Web Content Rx, A Quick and Handy Guide for Writers, Webmasters, Ebayers, and Business People.”

Q. Has social networking proved itself to be an effective tool for business or is it still unproven?

A. After you have verified that your customers are in social networks, social networking can be very effective, but only if your customers are in social networks. That is a critical distinction, and one that you must address before you begin any social networking campaign. Social networking allows businesses of all sizes to open conversations with their customers. As Robert Scoble, co-author of Naked Conversations wrote, “… it’s as influential as the New York Times or CNN ….” Social networking is being used to find jobs, promote products, movies, pizzas, and to get an organizations message in front of their customers. Social networking is not advertising. When you social network, you are communicating with people who are interested in what you are doing.

Q. One of the things you say is content is critical to the success of a social networking campaign. What is the best means for developing quality content? How do you determine if content is quality?

A. What you refer to as quality content is content that meets the needs of your customer. If the content is read and responded to it is quality content. Your customer is the person that you want to find your social networking campaign and participate in it. No one will read, listen to, or view fluff. How do you know what your customer wants to know? You ask them. I know that sounds too simple and somehow unsatisfying, but it’s effective. Ask smart. Use email marketing, run a contest, ask them personally, send out a questionnaire that offers a discount or reward to anyone who completes it. This will provide you with valuable market research from the most important people in the world — your customers. This information will guide your social networking efforts: your Web content, media releases, PDFs, everything — so use it well.  

Remember WIIFM, “What’s In It For Me?” This question must be answered, because people will only read, watch, or listen to material that fills a need; whether that need is technically related, entertainment related, news, or they just need information. That’s why I say your content will either, “Get read, or get lost.”

Q. Content needs to be built around Web hits. That begs the question – do you write content that serves your customers or do you hope for page hits? It seems like the issue of quality vs. content. Which is more important?

A. Don’t think as quality as something distinct from content. Web content, like anything else, can be good or bad. Content that serves the needs of your customers will result in more Web traffic. That’s the point of social networking. Unless you don’t have a Web site, in that case Facebook or another site will need to be used to reach your goals. You want to drive traffic to your Web site, to have your blog read, your Facebook page seen, and your Tweets followed. You want people to form the opinion that you are a professional that they can trust to do a good job. Someone they can work with. 

Your Web site is the crown jewel of your social networking campaign. There, on your media page, you will place media releases for Google to find. There also will be information for reporters, journalists, and bloggers so that they can write about your company. Don’t worry, if they need more material they will contact you. What this does is make it easy for them to research your company and can result in you being asked someday if you saw the article on you? Nice question to be asked. This will supercharge your social networking campaign.

Be sure that your Web site is up to the task of providing the information your readers will be looking for. If you need to upgrade it, do so before you launch your social networking campaign. There is no use driving traffic to a Web site that can’t carry the ball.

Q. You also touch on the issue of podcasts. Some companies used podcasts to communicate to employees. What is the best use of a podcast in business?

A. I talk about this extensively in my book, WebContentRx. In my view podcasting and video podcasting, or vodcasting, has barely scratched the surface. Imagine doing a complex task. Whether it be installing software or repairing a jet engine. Think of having a voice in your ear telling you what to look for, what to do next, and so on. This isn’t fiction; this is the potential of podcasting. For training, equipment installation, assembly, what’s better than having instructions speaking to you as you do the job? A vodcast will tell you and show you what is to be done and how to do it. Add the ability to move this information anywhere in the world and you have a superior system for providing instructions for the maintenance and installation of just about anything. This is far cheaper than printing and shipping technical manuals. Podcasts can be supplied by the Web, email, DVD or CD-ROM, thumb drive, and all the technologies that are to follow. Add to that virtually instantaneous availability, anywhere, any time, and you have a worldwide information retrieval system if there ever was one.